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A MASTER-KEY
Mysteries of Ancient and Mo-dern
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.
H. P. BLAVATSKY,
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY CF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
''Cecy est un livre de bonne Foy." — Montaigne.
Vol. \l.— theology.
NEW YORK:
J. W. BOUTON, 706 BROADWAY.
LONDON: BERNARD QUARITCH.
1877.
Copyright, by
J. "W. BOTJTON.
1877.
Trow's
Printing and Bookdinding Co.,
PRINTERS AND BOOKIilNDERS,
205-213 Kast \ith St.,
NEW VORiC,
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Preface
Mrs. Elizabetli Thompson and Baroness Burdett-Coutts.
THE ''INFALLIBILITY'' OF RELIGION.
CHAPTER I.
THE CHURCH : WHERE IS IT ?
Church statistics I
Catholic " miracles" and spiritualistic "phenomena" 4
Christian and Pagan beliefs compared lo
Magic and sorcery practised by Christian clergy 20
Comparative theology a new science , 25
Eastern traditions as to Alexandrian Library 27
Roman pontiffs imitators of the Hindu Brahm-atma 30
Christian dogmas derived from Iieathen philosophy 33
Doctrine of the Trinity of Pagan origin 45
Disputes between Gnostics and Church Fathers SI
Bloody records of Christianity S3
CHAPTER II.
CHRISTIAN CRIMES AND HEATHEN VIRTUES.
Sorceries of Catherine of Medicis S5
Occult arts practised by the clergy 59
Witch-burnings and auto-da-fe of little children 62
Lying Catholic saints 74
Pretensions of missionaries in India and China 79
Sacrilegious tricks of Catholic clergy 82
Paul a kabalist 91
Petsr not the founder of Roman church 91
Strict lives of Pagan hierophants 98
High character of ancient "mysteries" ■ lOI
CONTENTS.
PAGS
Jacolliot' s account of Hindu fakirs
Cliristian symbolism derived from Pliallic worship "
Hindu doctrine of the Pitris
Brahminic spirit -communion
Dangers of untrained mediumsliip
CHAPTER in.
DIVISIONS AMONGST THE EARLY CHRISTIANS.
Resemblance between early Christianity and Buddhism 123
Peter never in Rome 4
Meanings of " Nazar " and " Nazarene " 129
Baptism a derived right ^ ' '34
Is Zoroaster a generic name ? 14'
Pythagorean teachings of Jesus '47
The Apocalypse kabalistic '47
Jesus considered an adept by some Pagan philosophers and early Christians 150
Doctrine of permutation 'S^
The meaning of God-Incarnate '53
Dogmas of the Gnostics I5S
Ideas of Marcion, the "heresiarch" I59
Precepts of Manu '"3
Jehovah identical with Bacchus 165
CHAPTER IV.
ORIENTAL COSMOGONIES AND BIBLE RECORDS.
Discrepancies in the Pentateuch 167
Indian, Chaldean and Ophite systems compared 17°
Who were the first Christians? 17^
Christos and Sophia- Achamoth I S3
Secret doctrine taught by Jesus 191
Jesus never claimed to be God 1 93
New Testament narratives and Hindu legends 199
Antiquity of the " Logos ' ' and " Christ " 205
Comparative Virgin-worship 209
CHAPTER V.
MYSTERIES OF THE ICABALA.
En-Soph and the Sephiroth 212
The primitive wisdom-religion 2i6
The book of Genesis a compilation of Old Wo- Id legends 217
The Trinity of the Kabala , 22a
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Gnostic and Nazarene systems contrasted mth Hindu myths 225
Kabalism in the book of Ezekiel * 232
Story of the resurrection of Jairus's daughter found in the history of Christna 241
Untrustworthy teachings of the eai'Iy Fathers 248
Their persecuting spirit 249
CHAPTER VI.
ESOTERIC DOCTRINES OF BUDDHISM PARODIED IN CHRISTIANITY.
Decisions of Nicean Council, how arrived at 251
Murder of Hypatia 252
Origm of the fish-symbol of Vishnu 256
Kabalistic doctrine of the Cosmogony 264
Diagrams of Hindu and Chaldeo- Jewish systems 265
Ten mythical Avatars of Vishnu 274
Trinity of man taught by Paul 281
Socrates and Plato on soul and spirit 283
True Buddhism, what it is 288
CHAPTER Vn.
EARLY CHRISTIAN HERESIES AND SECRET SOCIETIES.
Nazareans, Ophites, and modern Druzes 291
Etymology of TAG 29S
" Hermetic Brothers "of Egypt 307
True meaning of Nirvana 319
The Jai'na sect 321
Christians and Christians 323
The Gnostics and their detractors 325
Buddha, Jesus, and ApoUonius of Tyana 341
CHAPTER VIII.
JESUITRY AND MASONRY.
The Sohar and Rabbi Simeon 348
The Order of Jesuits and its relation to some of the Masonic orders 352
Crimes permitted to its members 355
Principles of Jesuitry compared with those of Pagan moralists 364
Trinity of man in Egyptian Book of the Dead 367
Freemasonry no longer esoteric 372
Persecution of Templars by the Church 381
Secret Masonic ciphers ^. 39S
Jehovah not the " Ineffable Name " 398
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX.
THE VEDAS AND THE BIBLE.
' PAGE
Nearly eveiy my th based on some gi'eat truth 4°S
Whence the Christian Sabbath 4o6
Antiquity of the Vedas 4'°
Pythagorean doctrine of the potentialities of numbers 4^7
" Days" of Genesis and " Days " of Brahma 422
Fall of man and the Deluge in the Hindu books 425
Antiquity of the Mahabharata 429
Were the ancient Egyptians of the Aryan race ? 434
Samuel, David, and Solomon mythical personages 439
Symbolism of Noah's Ark 447
The Patriarchs identical with zodiacal signs , 459
All Bible legends belong to universal history 469
CHAPTER X.
THE DEVIL-MYTH.
The devil officially recognized by tha Church x.77
Satan the mainstay of sacerdotalism , .gg
Identity of Satan with the Egyptian Typhon -g.
His relation to serpent-worship .gq
The Book of Job and the Book of the Dead ,g.
The Hindu devil a metaphysical abstraction coi
Satan and the Prince of Hell in the Gospel of Nicodemus 515
CHAPTER XI.
COMPARATIVE RESULTS OF BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY.
The age of philosophy produced no atheists c,g
The legends of three Saviours .,_
Christian doctrine of the Atonement illogical p . ,
Cause of the failure of missionaries to convert Buddhists and Brahmanists cc-j
Neither Buddha nor Jesus left written records -ro
The grandest mysteries of religion in the Bagaved-gita rg.
The meaning of regeneration explained in the Satapa-Brahmana rgr
The sacrifice of blood interpreted <-^
Demoralization of British India by Christla-n missionaries
The Bible less authenticated than any other sacred book
Knowledge of chemistry and physics displayed by Indian jugglers. . . . cgi
CHAPTER XII.
CONCLUSIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
Recapitulation of fundamental propositions
Seership of the soul and of the spirit
^ S90
CONTENTS.
PAGE
The phenomenon of the so-called spirit-hand 594
Difference between mediums and adepts •. 595
Interview of an English ambassador with a reincarnated Buddha 598
Flight of a lama's astral body related by Abbe Hue 604
Schools of magic in Buddhist lamaseries 609
The unknown race of Hindu Todas 613
Will-power of fakirs and yogis 617
Taming of wild beasts by fakirs 622
Evocation of a living spirit by a Shaman, witnessed by the writer 626
Sorcery by the breath of a Jesuit Father 633
Why the study of magic is almost impracticable in Europe 635
Conclusion 635
PREFACE TO PART II.
WERE it possible, we would keep this work out of the hands of
many Christians whom its perusal would not benefit, and for
whom it was not written. We allude to those whose faith in their respec-
tive churches is pure and sincere, and those whose sinless lives reflect the
glorious example of that Prophet of Nazareth, by whose mouth the spirit
of truth spake loudly to humanity. Such there have been at all times.
History preserves the names of many as heroes, philosophers, philan-
thropists, martyrs, and holy men and women ; but how many more have
lived and died, unknown but to their intimate acquaintance, unblessed
but by their humble beneficiaries ! These have ennobled Christianit)',
but would have shed the same lustre upon any other faith they might have
professed — for they were higher than their creed. The benevolence of
Peter Cooper and Elizabeth Thompson, of America, who are not ortho-
dox Christians, is no less Christ-like than that of the Baroness Angela
Burdett-Coutts, of England, who is one. And yet, in comparison with
the milhons who have been accounted Christians, such have always
formed a small minority. They are to be found at this day, in pul-
pit and pew, in palace and cottage ; but the increasing materialism,
worldliness and hypocrisy are fast diminishing their proportionate num-
ber. Their charity, and simple, child-like faith in the infallibiUty of their
Bible, their dogmas, and their clergy, bring into full activity all the virtues
IV PREFACE TO PART II.
that are implanted in our common nature. We have personally known
such God-fearing priests and clergymen, and we have always avoided
debate with them, lest we might be guilty of the cruelty of hurting their
feelings; nor would we rob a single layman of his blind confidence, if it
alone made possible for him holy living and serene dying.
An analysis of religious beliefs in general, this volume is in particu-
lar, directed against theological Christianity, the chief opponent of free
thought. It contains not one word against the pure teachings of Jesus,
but unsparingly denounces their debasement into pernicious ecclesiasti-
cal systems that are ruinous to man's faith in his immortality and his
God, and subversive of all moral restraint.
We cast our gauntlet at the dogmatic theologians who would enslave
both history and science ; and especially at the Vatican, whose despotic
pretensions have become hateful to the greater portion of enlightened
Christendom. The clergy apart, none but the logician, the investigator,
the dauntless explorer should meddle with books like this. Such delv-
ers after truth have the courage of their opinions.
\
ISIS UNVEILED.
PART TIVO.— RELIGION.
CHAPTER I.
" Yea, the time cometh, that whomsoever killeth you, will think that he doeth God service." — Gospel
accordi7ig to Joh7t^ xvi. 2.
" Let him be Anathema . . . who shall say that human Sciences ought to be pursued In such a
spirit of freedom that one may be allowed to hold as true their assertions even when opposed to revealed
doctrines." — CEcununical Council of 1870.
" Glouc— The Church ! Where is \f>"—King- He?iry VI., Act i., Sc. i.
IN the United States of America, sixty thousand {60,428) men are paid
salaries to teach the Science of God and His relations to His crea-
tures.
These men contract to impart to us the knowledge which treats of
the existence, character, and attributes of our Creator ; His laws and
government ; the doctrines we are to believe and the duties we are to
practice. Five thousand (5,141) of them,* with the prospect of 1273
theological students to help them in time, teach this science according
to a formula prescribed by the Bishop of Rome, to five million people.
Fifty-five thousand (55,287) local and travelling ministers, representing
fifteen different denominations, f each contradicting the other upon more
or less vital theological questions, instnict, in their respective doctrines,
thirty-three million (33,500,000) other persons. Many of these teach ac-
cording to the canons of the cis-Atlantic branch of an establishment
which acknowledges a daughter of the late Duke of Kent as its spiritual
* These figures are copied from the " Religious Statistics of the United States for tin,
year 1871."
\ These are : The Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Northern Method-
ists, Southern Methodists, Methodists various. Northern Presbyterians, Southern Pres-
byterians, United Presbyterians, United Brethren, Brethren in Christ, Reformed
Dutch., Reformed German, Reformed Presbyterians, Cumberland Presbyterians.
2 ISIS UNVEILED.
head. There are many hundred thousand Jews; some thousands of
Orientals of all kinds ; and a very few who belong to the Greek Church.
A man at Salt Lake City, with nineteen wives and more than one hun-
dred children and grandchildren, is the supreme spiritual ruler over
ninety thousand people, who believe that he is in frequent mtercourse
with the gods — for the Mormons are Polytheists as well as Polygamists,
and their chief god is represented as living in a planet they call Colob.
The God of the Unitarians is a bachelor; the Deity of the Presby-
terians, Methodists, Congregationalists, and the other orthodox Protestant
sects a spouseless Father with one Son, who is identical with Himself.
In the attempt to outvie each other in the erection of their sixty-two
thousand and odd churches, prayer-houses, and meeting-halls, in which
to teach these conflicting theological doctrines, $354, 485, 581 have been
spent. The value of the Protestant parsonages alone, in which are
sheltered the disputants and their families, is roughly calculated to
approximate $54,115,297. Sixteen million (16,179,387) dollars, are,
morever, contributed every year for current expenses of the Protestant
denominations only. One Presbyterian church in New York cost a round
million ; a Catholic altar alone, one-fourth as much !
We will not mention the multitude of smaller sects, communities, and
extravagantly original little heresies in this country which spring up one
year to die out the next, like so many spores of fungi after a rainy day.
We will not even stop to consider the alleged millions of Spiritualists ;
for the majority lack the courage to break away from their respective re-
ligious denominations. These are the back-door Nicodemuses.
And now, with Pilate, let us inquire. What is truth ? Where is it to be
searched for amid this multitude of warring sects ? Each claims to be
based upon divine revelation, and each to have the keys of the celestial
gates. Is either in possession of this rare truth ? Or, must we exclaim
with the Buddhist philosopher, " There is but one truth on earth, and it
is unchangeable : and this is — that there is no truth on it ! "
Though we have no disposition whatever to trench upon the ground
that has been so exhaustively gleaned by those learned scholars who have
shown that every Christian dogma has its origin in a heathen rite, still the
facts which they have exhumed, since the enfranchisement of science, will
lose nothing by repetition. Besides, we propose to examine these facts
from a different and perhaps rather novel point of view : that of the old
philosophies as esoterically understood. These we have barely glanced
at in our first volume. We will use them as the standard by which to
compare Christian dogmas and miracles with the doctrines and pheno-
mena of ancient magic, and the modern " New Dispensation," as Spirit-
ualism is called by its votaries. Since the materialists deny the phenom-
"THE church! where IS IT?" 3
ena without investigation, and since the theologians in admitting them
offer us the poor choice of two palpable absurdities — the Devil and mira-
cles— we can lose httle by applying to the theurgists, and tbey may actu-
ally help us to throw a great hght upon a very dark subject.
Professor A. Butlerof, of the Imperial University of St. Petersburg,
remarks in a recent pamphlet, entitled Mediuviistic Manifestations, as
follows : " Let the facts (of modern spiritualism) belong if you will to the
number of those which were more or less known by the ancients ; let
them be identical with those which in the dark ages gave importance to
the office of Egyptian priest or Roman augur ; let them even furnish the
basis of the sorcery of our Siberian Shaman ; ... let them be all these,
and, if they are real facts, it is no business of ours. All the facts in
nature belong to science, and every addition to the store of science en-
riches instead of impoverishing her. If humanity has once admitted a
trutii, and then in the blindness of self-conceit denied it, to return to its
realization is a step forward and not backward."
Since the day that modern science gave what may be considered the
death-blow to dogmatic theology, by assuming the ground that religion
was full of mysterjf, and mystery is unscientific, the mental state of
the educated class has presented a curious aspect. Society seems from
that time to have been ever balancing itself upon one leg, on an unseen
tight-rope stretched from our visible universe into the invisible one ; un-
certain whether the end hooked on faith in the latter might not suddenly
break, and hurl it into final annihilation.
The great body of nominal Christians may be divided into three
unequal portions : materialists, spiritualists, and Christians proper. The
materialists and spiritualists make common cause against the hierarchical
pretensions of the clergy ; wl>o, in retaliation, denounce both with equal
acerbity. The materialists are as little in harmony as the Christian sects
themselves — the Comtists, or, as they call themselves, the positivists,
being despised and hated to the last degree by the schools of thinkers,
one of which Maudsley honorably represents in England. Positivism, be
it remembered, is that " religion " of the future about whose founder even
Huxley has made himself wrathful in his famous lecture. The Physical
Basis of Life ; and Maudsley felt obhged, in behalf of modern science,
to express himself thus : "It is no wonder that scientific men should be
anxious to disclaim Comte as their law-giver, and to protest against such
a king being set up to reign over them. Not conscious of any personal
obligation to his writings — conscious how much, in some respects, he has
misrepresented the spirit and pretensions of science — they repudiate the
allegiance which his enthusiastic disciples would force upon them, and
which popular opinion is fast coming to think a natural one. They do
4 ISIS UNVEILED.
well in thus making a timely assertion of independence ; for if it be not
done soon, it will soon be too late to be done well." * When a mate-
rialistic doctrine is repudiated so strongly by two such materialists as
Huxley and Maudsley, then we must think indeed that it is absurdity
itself.
Among Christians there is nothing but dissension. Their various
churches represent every degree of religious belief, from the omnivorous
credulity of blind faith to a condescending and high-toned deference to
the Deity which thinly masks an evident conviction of their own deific
wisdom. All these sects believe more or less in the immortality of the
soul. Some admit the intercourse between the two worlds as a fact ;
some entertain the opinion as a sentiment ; some positively deny it ; and
only a few maintain an attitude of attention and expectancy.
Impatient of restraint, longing for the return of the dark ages, the
Romish Church frowns at the diabolical manifestations, and indicates
what she would do to their champions had she but the power of old.
Were it not for the self-evident fact that she herself is placed by science
on trial, and that she is handcuffed, she would be ready at a moment's
notice to repeat in the nineteenth century the revolting scenes of former
days. As to the Protestant clergy, so furious is their common hatred
toward spiritualism, that as a secular paper very truly remarks : " They
seem willing to undermine the public faith in all the spiritual pheno-
mena of the past, as recorded in the Bible, if they can only see the pes-
tilent modern heresy stabbed to the heart." f
Summoning back the long-forgotten memories of the Mosaic laws,
the Romish Church claims the monopoly of miracles, and of the right
to sit in judgment over them, as being the sole heir thereto by di-
rect inheritance. The Old Testaynent, exiled by Colenso, his prede-
cessors and contemporaries, is recalled from its banishment. The proph-
ets, whom his Holiness the Pope condescends at last to place, if not on
the same level with himself, at least at a less respectful distance, J are
dusted and cleaned. The memory of all the diabolical abracadabra is
evoked anew. The blasphemous horrors perpetrated by Paganism, its
* H. Maudsley : " Body and Mind."
f " Boston Sunday Herald," November 5, 1876.
\ See the self-glorification of the present Pope in the work entitled, " Speeches of
Pope Pius IX." by Don Pascale de Franciscis ; and the famous pamphlet of that name
by the Rt . Hon. W. E. Gladstone. The latter quotes from the work named the fol-
lowing sentence pronounced by the Pope; " My wish is that all governments should
know that I am speaking in this strain. . . . And I have the right to speak even
more than Nathan the prophet to David the king, and a great deal more than St.
Ambrose had to Theodosins 1 1 "
PAGAN PHALLISM IN CHRISTIAN SYMBOLS. 5
phallic worship, thaumaturgical wonders wrought by Satan, human sacri-
fices, incantations, witchcraft, magic, and sorcery are recalled and
DEMONISM is confronted with spiritualism for mutual recognition and
identification. Our modern demonologists conveniently overlook a few
insignificant details, among which is the undeniable presence of heathen
phallism in the Christian symbols. A strong spiritual element of this
worship may be easily demonstrated in the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception of the Virgin Mother of God ; and a physical element
equally proved in the fetish-worship of the holy limbs of Sts. Cosmo and
Damiano, at Isernia, near Naples ; a successful traffic in which ex-voto
in wax was carried on by the clergy, annually, until barely a half centurj'
ago. *
We find it rather unwise on the part of Catholic writers to pour out
their vials of wrath in such sentences as these : " In a multitude of
pagodas, the phallic stone, ever and always assuming, like the Grecian
batylos, the brutally indecent form of the lingham . . . the Maha
Deva." I Before casting slurs on a symbol whose profound metaphysi-
cal meaning is too much for the modern champions of that religion of
sensualism far excellence, Roman Catholicism, to grasp, they are in duty
bound to destroy their oldest churches, and change the form of the cupolas
of their own temples. The Mahody of Elephanta, the Round Tower of
Bhangulpore, the minarets of Islam — either rounded or pointed — are the
originals of the Campanile column of San Marco, at Venice, of the Roch-
ester Cathedral, and of the modern Duorao of Milan. All of these steeples,
turrets, domes, and Christian temples, are the reproductions of the primitive
idea of the litJios, the upright phallus. "The western tower of St. Paul's
Cathedral, London," says the author of The Hosicrucians, "is one of the
double liihoi placed always in front of every temple, Cliristian as well as
heathen." \ Moreover, in all Christian Churches, " particularly in Prot-
estant churches, where they figure most conspicuously, the two tables of
stone of the Mosaic Dispensation are placed over the altar, side by side,
as a united stone, the tops of which are rounded. . . . The right stone is
masculine, the left feminine." Therefore neither CathoUcs nor Protest-
ants have a right to talk of the "indecent forms " of heathen monuments
so long as they ornament their own churches with the symbols of the
Lingham and Yoni, and even write the laws of their God upon them.
Another detail not redounding very particularly to the honor of the
Christian clergy might be recalled in the word Inquisition. The torrents
* See King's "Gnostics," and other works.
\ Des Mousseaux ; " La Magie au XlXme Siecle," chap. i.
X Hargrave Jennings: " The Rosicrucians," pp. 228-241.
6 ISIS UNVEILED.
of human blood shed by this Christian institution, and the number of
its human sacrifices, are unparalleled in the annals of Paganism. Another
still more prominent feature in which the clergy surpassed their "'^^'^"'
the "heathen," is sorcery. Certainly in no Pagan temple was black
magic, in its real and true sense, more practiced than in the Vatican.
While strongly supporting exorcism as an important source of revenue,
they neglected magic as little as the ancient heathen. It is easy to prove
that the sortilegium, or sorcery, was widely practiced among the clergy
and monks so late as the last century, and is practiced occasionally even
now.
Anathematizing every manifestation of occult nature outside the pre-
cincts of the Church, the clergy— notwithstanding proofs to the contrary
—call it " the work of Satan," " the snares of the fallen angels," who
" rush in and out from the bottomless pit," mentioned by John in his
kabalistic Revelation, " from whence arises a smoke as the smoke of a
great furnace. " " Intoxicated by its fumes, around this pit are daily gather-
ing millions of Spiritualists, to worship at ''the Abyss of Baal:' *
More than ever arrogant, stubborn, and despotic, now that she has
been nearly upset by modern research, not daring to interfere with the
powerful champions of science, the Latin Church revenges herself upon
the unpopular phenomena. A despot without a victim, is a word
void of sense ; a power which neglects to assert itself through outward,
well-calculated effects, risks being doubted in the end. The Church has
no intention to fall into the oblivion of the ancient myths, or to suffer her
authority to be too closely questioned. Hence she pursues, as well as
the times permit, her traditional policy. Lamenting the enforced extinc-
tion of her ally, the Holy Inquisition, she makes a virtue of necessity.
The only victims now within reach are the Spiritists of France. Recent
events have shown that the meek spouse of Christ never disdains to
retaliate on helpless victims.
Having successfully performed her part of Deus-ex-Machina from
behind the French Bench, which has not scrupled to disgrace itself for
her, the Church of Rome sets to work and shows in the year 1876 what
she can do. From the whirling tables and dancing pencils of profane
Spiritualism, the Christian world is warned to turn to the divine " mira-
cles " of Lourdes. Meanwhile, the ecclesiastical authorities utilize their
time in arranging for other more easy triumphs, calculated to scare the
superstitious out of their senses. So, acting under orders, the clergy
hurl dramatic, if not very impressive anathemas from every Catliolic
diocese ; threaten right and left ; excommunicate and curse. Per-
* Des Mousseaux : " Hauls Phenomenes de la Magie."
EXAMPLES OF PAPAL VITUPERATION. 7
ceiving, finally, that her thunderbolts dhected even against crowned
heads fall about as harmlessly as the Jupiterean lightnings of Offenbach's
Calchas, Rome turns about in powerless fury against the vLctimized pro-
teges of the Emperor of Russia — the unfortunate Bulgarians and Ser-
vians. Undisturbed by evidence and sarcasm, unbaffled by proof, " the
lamb of the Vatican " impartially divides his wrath between the liberals
of Italy, " the impious whose breath has the stench of the sepulchre," *
the " schismatic Russian Sarmates" and the heretics and spiritualists,
"who worship at the bottomless pit where the great Dragon lies in
wait."
Mr. Gladstone went to the trouble of making a catalogue of what he
terms the " flowers of speech," disseminated through these Papal dis-
courses. Let us cull a few of the chosen terms used by this vicegerent of
Him who said that, " whosoever shall say Thou fool, shall be in danger of
hell-fire." They are selected from authentic discourses. Those who
oppose the Pope are " wolves, Pharisees, thieves, liars, hypocrites, drop-
sical children of Satan, sons of perdition, of sin, and corruption, satellites
of Satan in human flesh, monsters of hell, demons incarnate, stinking
corpses, men issued from the pits of hell, traitors and Judases led by the
spirit of hell ; children of the deepest pits of hell," etc., etc ; the whole
piously collected and published by Don Pasquale di Franciscis, whom
Gladstone has, with perfect propriety, termed, " an accomplished profes-
sor oiflunkeyistn in things spiritual." f
Since his Holiness the Pope has such a rich vocabulary of invectives
at his command, why wonder that the Bishop of Toulouse did not scruple
to utter the most undignified falsehoods about the Protestants and Spirit-
ualists of America — people doubly odious to a Catholic — in his address
to his diocese : " Nothing," he remarks, " is more common in an era of
unbelief than to see a false revelation substitute itself for the true o?ie,
and minds neglect the teachings of the Holy Church, to devote them-
selves to the study of divination and the occult sciences." With a fine
episcopal contempt for statistics, and strangely confounding in his mem-
ory the audiences of the revivalists, Moody and Sankey, and the patrons
of darkened seance-rooms, he utters the unwarranted and fallacious as-
sertion that " it has been proven that Spiritualism, in the United States,
has caused one-sixth of all the cases of suicide and insanity." He says
that it is not possible that the spirits ' ' teach either an exact science,
because they are lying demons, or a usefiil science, because the character
* Don Pasquale di Franciscis : " Discorsi del Sommo Pontefice Pio IX.," Part i.,
P- 34°-
f "Speeches of Pius IX.," p. 14. Am. Edition.
8 ISIS UNVEILED.
of the word of Satan, like Satan himself, Is sterile." He warns his dear
collaborateurs, that " the writings In favor of Spiritualism are under_ e
ban ; " and he advises them to let It be known that " to frequent spiritual
circles with the Intention of accepting the doctrine, is to apostatize trom
the Holy Church, and assume the risk of excommunication ; hnally
says he, "Publish the fact that the teaching of no spirit should prevail
against that of the pulpit of Peter, which is the teaching of the Spirit of
God Himself!!"
Aware of the many false teachings attributed by the Roman Church
to the Creator, we prefer disbeUeving the latter assertion. The famous
Catholic theologian, Tlllemont, assures us in his work that " all the illus-
trious Pagans are condemned to the eternal torments of hell, because
they hved before the time of Jesus, and, therefore, could not be benefited
by the redemption I ! " He also assures us that the Virgin Mary person-
ally testified to this truth over her own signature in a letter to a saint.
Therefore, this is also a revelation — " the Spirit of God Himself" teaching
such charitable doctrines.
We have also read with great advantage the topographical descrip-
tions of Hell and Purgatory in the celebrated treatise under that name
by a Jesuit, the Cardinal Bellarmin. A critic found that the author, who
gives the description from a divine vision with which he was favored,
" appears to possess all the knowledge of a land-measurer " about the
secret tracts and formidable divisions of the "bottomless pit." Justin
Martyr having actually committed to paper the heretical thought that
after all Socrates might not be altogether fixed in hell, his Benedictine
editor criticises this too benevolent father very severely. Whoever
doubts the Christian charity of the Church of Rome in this direction is
invited to peruse the Censure of the Sorbonne, on Marmontel's Belisa-
rius. The odium theologicum blazes in it on the dark sky of orthodox
theology like an aurora borealis — the precursor of God's wrath, accord-
ing to the teaching of certain mediaeval divines.
We have attempted in the first part of this work to show, by histori-
cal examples, how completely men of science have deserved the sting-
ing sarcasm of the late Professor de Morgan, who remarked of them
that "they wear the priest's cast-off garb, dyed to escape detection."
The Christian clergy are, in like manner, attired in the cast-off garb of
the heathen priesthood ; acting diametrically in opposition to their Gods
moral precepts, but nevertheless, sitting in judgment over the whole
world.
When dying on the cross, the martyred Man of Sorrows forgave his
enemies. His last words were a prayer in their behalf. He taught his
disciples to curse not, but to bless, even their foes. But the heirs of
CATHOLIC BLASPHEMY AGAINST HEAVEN. 9
St. Peter, the self-constituted representatives on earth of that same meek
Jesus, unhesitatingly curse whoever resists their despotic will. Besides,
was not the " Son " long since crowded by them into the 'background ?
They make their obeisance only to the Dowager Mother, for — according
to their teaching — again through "the direct Spirit of God," she alone
acts as a mediatrix. The CEcumenical Council of 1870 embodied the
teaching into a dogma, to disbelieve which is to be doomed forever to
the ' bottomless pit.' The work of Don Pasquale di Franciscis is posi-
tive on that point ; for he tells us that, as the Queen of Heaven owes to
the present Pope " the finest gem in her coronet," since he has conferred
on her the unexpected honor of becoming suddenly immaculate, there is
nothing she cannot obtain from her Son for " her Church." *
Some years ago, certain travellers saw in Barri, Italy, a statue of the
Madonna, arrayed in a flounced pink skirt over a swelling crinoline !
Pious pilgrims who may be anxious to examine the regulation wardrobe
of their God's mother may do so by going to Southern Italy, Spain, and
Catholic North and South America. The Madonna of Barri must still
be there — between two vineyards and a locanda (gin-shop). When last
seen, a half-successful attempt had been made to clothe the infant Jesus ;
they had covered his legs with a pair of dirty, scollop-edged pantaloons.
An English traveller having presented the " Mediatrix " with a green
silk parasol, the grateful population of the contadini, accompanied by the
village-priest, went in procession to the spot. They managed to stick
the sunshade, opened, between the infant's back and the arm of the
Virgin which embraced him. The scene and ceremony were both sol-
emn and highly refreshing to our religious feelings. For there stood the
image of the goddess in its niche, surrounded with a row of ever-burning
lamps, the flames of which, flickering in the breeze, infect God's pure air
with an offensive smell of olive oil. The Mother and Son truly repre-
sent the two most conspicuous idols of Monotheistic Christianity !
For a companion to the idol of the poor contadini of Barri, go to the
rich city of Rio Janeiro. In the Church of the Duomo del Candelaria,
in a long hall running along one side of the church, there might be seen,
a few years ago, another Madonna. Along the walls of the hall there is
a line of saints, each standing on a contribution-box, which thus forms a
fit pedestal. In the centre of this line, under a gorgeously rich canopy
of blue silk, is exhibited the Virgin Mary leaning on the arm of Christ.
" Our Lady " is arrayed in a very decollete blue satin dress with short
*Vide "Speeches of Pope Pius IX.," by Don Pasq. di Franciscis; Gladstone's
pamphlet on this book; Draper's "Conflict between Religion and Science," and
others.
lO ISIS UNVEILED.
sleeves, showing, to great advantage, a snow-white, exquisitely-mou c
neck, shoulders, and arms. The skirt equally of blue satin with an over-
skirt of rich lace and gauze puffs, is as short as that of a ballet-dancei ;
hardly reaching the knee, it exhibits a pair of finely-shaped legs covered
with flesh colored silk tights, and blue satin French boots with very high
red heels ! The blonde hair of this " xMother of God " is arranged in
the latest fashion, with a voluminous chignon and curls. As she leans on
her Son's arm, her face is lovingly turned toward her Only-Begotten,
whose dress and attitude are equally worthy of admiration. Christ wears
an evening dress-coat, with swallow-tail, black trousers, and low cut
white vest ; varnished boots, and white kid gloves, over one of which spar-
kles a rich diamond ring, worth many thousands we must suppose— a
precious Brazihan jewel. Above this body of a modern Portuguese dan-
dy, is a head with the hair parted in the middle ; a sad and solemn face,
and eyes whose patient look seems to reflect all the bitterness of this
last insult flung at the majesty of the Crucified. *
The Egyptian Isis was also represented as a Virgin Mother by her
devotees, and as holding her infant son, Horus, in her arms. In some
statues and basso-relievos, when she appears alone she is either com-
pletely nude or veiled from head to foot. But in the Mysteries, in common
with nearly every other goddess, she is entirely veiled from head to foot,
as a symbol of a mother's chastity. It would not do us any harm were
we to borrow from the ancients some of the poetic sentiment in their
religions, and the innate veneration they entertained for their symbols.
It is but fair to say at once that the last of the true Christians died
with the last of the direct apostles. Max Miiller forcibly asks : " How
can a missionary in such circumstances meet the surprise and questions
of his pupils, unless he may point to that seed, f and tell them what
Christianity was meant to be ? unless he may show that, like all other reli-
gions, Christianity too, has had its history ; that the Christianity of the
nineteenth century is not the Christianity of the middle ages, and that
the Christianity of the middle ages was not that of the early Councils ;
that the Cliristianity of the early Councils was not that of the Apostles,
and that what has been said by Christ, that alone was well said ? " J
Thus we may infer that the only characteristic difference between
modern Christianity and the old heathen faiths is the belief of the former
in a personal devil and in hell. " The Aryan nations had no devil,"
says Max Miiller. " Pluto, though of a sombre character, was a very
* The fact is given to us by an eye-witness who has visited the church several times •
a Roman Catholic, who felt perfectly horrified, as he expressed it.
\ Referring to the seed planted by Jesus and his Apostles.
\ "Chips," vol. i., p. 26, Preface.
THE HELLS OF VARIOUS NATIONS. II
respectable personage ; and Loki (the Scandinavian), though a mischiev-
ous person, was not a fiend. The German Goddess, Hell, too, like
Proserpine, had once seen better days. Thus, when the'Germans were
indoctrinated with the idea of a real devil, the Semitic Seth, Satan or
Diabolus, they treated him in the most good-humored way."
The same may be said of hell. Hades was quite a different place from
our region of eternal damnation, and might be termed rather an inter-
mediate state of purification. Neither does the Scandinavian Hel or
Hela, imply either a state or a place of punishment ; for when Frigga,
the grief-stricken mother of Bal-dur, the white god, who died and found
himself in the dark abodes of the shadows (Hades) sent Hermod, a son
of Thor, in quest of her beloved child, the messenger found him in the
inexorable region — alas ! but still comfortably seated on a rock, and
reading a book.* The Norse kingdom of the dead is moreover situated
in the higher latitudes of the Polar regions ; it is a cold and cheerless
abode, and neither the gelid halls of Hela, nor the occupation of Baldur
present the least similitude to the blazing hell of eternal fire and the
miserable " damned " sinners with which the Church so generously peoples
it. No more is it the Eg)^tian Amenthes, the region of judgment and
purification ; nor the Onderah — the abyss of darkness of the Hindus ;
for even the fallen angels hurled into it by Siva, are allowed by Para-
brahma to consider it as an intermediate state, in which an opportunity
is afforded them to prepare for higher degrees of purification and redemp-
tion from their wretched condition. The Gehenna of the New Testa-
ment was a locality outside the walls of Jerusalem ; and in mentioning
it, Jesus used but an ordinary metaphor. Whence then came the dreary
dogma of hell, that Archimedean lever of Christian theology, with which
they have succeeded to hold in subjection the numberless millions of
Christians for nineteen centuries ? Assuredly not from the Jewish
Scriptures, and we appeal for corroboration to any well-informed Hebrew
scholar.
The only designation of something approaching hell in the Bible is
Gehen?ia or Hinnom, a valley near Jerusalem, where was situated Tophet,
a place where a fire was perpetually kept for sanitary purposesi The
prophet Jeremiah informs us that the Israelites used to sacrifice their
children to Moloch-Hercules on that spot ; and later we find Chris-
tians quietly replacing this divinity by their god of mercy, whose wrath
will not be appeased, unless the Church sacrifices to him her unbaptized
children and sinning sons on the altar of " eternal damnation ! "
Whence then did the divine learn so well the conditions of hell, as
* Mallet : " Northern Antiquities."
12 ISIS UNVEILED.
to actually divide its torments into two kinds, i\\^ pana damni and paenEe
sensus, the former being the privation of the beatific vision ; the latter
the eternal pains in a lake of fire and brimstone ? If they answer us that
it is in the Apocalypse (xx. lo), we are prepared to demonstrate whence
the theologist John himself derived the idea, " And ///^ fl'^wV that deceived
them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast ^z.nA
the false prophet are and shall be tormented for ever and ever," he
says. Laying aside the esoteric interpretation that the "devil" or
tempting demon meant our own earthly body, which after death will
surely dissolve in \he fiery or ethereal elements,* the word "eternal" by
which our theologians interpret the words '• for ever and ever" does not
exist in the Hebrew language, either as a word or meaning. There is
no Hebrew word which properly expresses eternity ; d>ij? oulam, according
to Le Clerc, only imports a time whose beginning or end is not known.
While showing that this word does not mean infinite duration, and that
in the Old Testament the word forever only signifies a long time. Arch-
bishop Tillotson has completely perverted its sense with respect to the
idea of hell-torments. According to his doctrine, when Sodom and
Gomorrah are said to be suffering " eternal fire," we must understand it
only in the sense of that fire nat being extinguished till both cities were
entirely consumed. But, as to hell-fire the words must be understood in
the strictest sense of infinite duration. Such is the decree of the learned
divine. For the duration of the punishment of the wicked must be
proportionate to the eternal happiness of the righteous. So he says,
" These (speaking of the wicked) " shall go away eis KoKaaw uuivtov into
eternal punishment ; but the righteous €is Jcuryv amviov into life eternal."
The Reverend T. Surnden, f commenting on the speculations of his
predecessors, fills a whole volume with unanswerable arguments, tending
to show that the locality of Hell is in the sun. We suspect that the rev-
erend speculator had read the Apocalypse in bed, and had the night-
mare in consequence. There are two verses in the Revelation of John
reading thus : "And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun,
and power was given him to scorch men with fire. And men were
scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God." J This is
simply Pythagorean and kabahstic allegory. The idea is new neither with
the above-mentioned author nor with John. Pythagoras placed the
" sphere of purification in the sun," which sun, with its sphere, he moreover
* Ether is both pure and impure fire. The composition of the latter comprises all
its visible forms, such as the " correlation of forces" — heat, flame, electricity etc.
The former is the Spirit of Fire. The difference is purely alchemical.
I See " Inquiry into the Nature and Place of Hell," by Rev. T. Surnden.
:|; Revelation xvi. S-9.
AUGUSTINE'S GEOCENTRIC HELL. 1 3
locates in the middle of the universe, * the allegory having a double mean-
ing : I. Symbolically, the central, spiritual sun, the Supreme Deity.
Arrived at this region every soul becomes purified of its sins, and unites
itself forever with its spirit, having previously suffered throughout all the
lower spheres. 2. By placing the sphere of visible fire in the middle of
the universe, he simply taught the heliocentric system which appertained
to the Mysteries, and was imparted only in the higher degree of initiation.
John gives to his Word a purely kabalistic significance, which no " Fathers,"
except those who had belonged to the Neo-platonic school, were able to
comprehend. Origen understood it well, having been a pupil of Ammo-
nius Saccas ; therefore we see him bravely denying the perpetuity of hell-
torments. He maintains that not only men, but even devils (by which
term he meant disembodied human sinners), after a certain duration of
punishment shall be pardoned and finally restored to heaven, f In con-
sequence of this and other such heresies Origen was, as a matter of
course, exiled.
Many have been the learned and truly-inspired speculations as to the
locality of hell. The most popular were those which placed it in the
centre of the earth. At a certain time, however, skeptical doubts which
disturbed the placidity of faith in this highly-refreshing doctrine arose in
consequence of the meddling scientists of those days. As a Mr. Swinden
in our own century observes, the theory was inadmissible because of two
objections : ist, that a fund of fuel or sulphur sufficient to maintain so
furious and constant a fire could not be there supposed ; and, 2d, that it
must want the nitrous particles in the air to sustain and keep it alive.
"And how," says he, "can a fire be eternal, when, by degrees, the whole
substance of the earth must be consumed thereby ? " J
The skeptical gentleman had evidently forgotten that centuries ago St.
Augustine solved the difficulty. Have we not the word of this learned
divine that hell, nevertheless, is in the centre of the earth, for " God sup-
plies the central fire with air by a miracle? " The argument is unanswerable,
and so we will not seek to upset it.
The Christians were the first to make the existence of Satan a dogma
of the Church. And once that she had established it, she had to
struggle for over 1,700 years for the repression of a mysterious force
which it was her policy to make appear of diabolical origin. Unfortu-
nately, in manifesting itself, this force invariably tends to upset such
a belief by the ridiculous discrepancy it presents between the alleged
cause and the effects. If the clergy have not over-estimated the real power
* Aristotle mentions Pythagoreans who placed the sphere of fire in the sun, and
named it Jupiter''s Prison. See " De Coelo," lib. ii.
\ "DeCivit. Dei," i, xxi., c. 17. % " Demonologia and Hell," p. 289.
14 ISIS UNVEILED.
of the " Arch-Enemy of God," it must be confessed that he takes mig^'y
precautions against being recognized as the " Prince of Darkness wio
aims at our souls. If modern " spirits " are devils at all, as preactiea
by the clergy, then they can only be those "poor" or " stupid devils
whom Max Mffller describes as appearing so often in the German and
Norwegian tales. ,.
Notwithstanding this, the clergy fear above all to be forced to relin-
quish this hold on humanity. They are not willing to let us judge of the
tree by its fruits, for that might sometimes force them into dangerous di-
lemmas. They refuse, likewise, to admit, with unprejudiced people, that
the phenomena of Spiritualism has unquestionably spiritualized and re-
claimed from evil courses many an indomitable atheist and skeptic. But, as
they confess themselves, what is the use in a Pope, if there is no Devil ?
And so Rome sends her ablest advocates and preachers to the rescue
of those perishing in " the bottomless pit." Rome employs her cleverest
writers for this purpose— albeit they all indignantly deny the accusation—
and in the preface to every book put forth by the prolific des Mousseaux,
the French Tertullian of our century, we find undeniable proofs of the
fact. Among other certificates of ecclesiastical approval, every volume is
ornamented with the text of a certain original letter addressed to the very
pious author by the world-known Father Ventura de Raulica, of Rome.
Few are those who have not heard this famous name. It is the name of
one of the chief pillars of the Latin Church, the ex-General of the Order
of the Theatins, Consultor of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, Examiner
of Bishops, and of the Roman Clergy, etc., etc., etc. This strikingly
characteristic document vnll remain to astonish future generations by
its spirit of unsophisticated demonolatry and unblushing sincerity. We
translate a fragment verbatim, and by thus helping its circulation hope to
merit the blessings of Mother Church : *
"Monsieur and excellent Friend:
"The greatest victory of Satan was gained on that day when he succeeded in mak-
ing himself denied.
" To demonstrate the existence of Satan, is to reestablish one of the fundamental
dogmas of the Church, which serve as a basis for Christianity, and, without which, Satan
would be but a name. . . .
" Magic, mesmerism, magnetism, somnambulism, spiritualism, spiritism, hypnotism
. . . are only other names for SATANISM.
" To bring out such a truth and show it in its proper light, is to unmask the enemy ;
it is to unveil the immense danger of certain practices, reputed innocent ; it is to de-
serve well in the eyes of humanity and of religion.
" Father Ventura de Raulica."
* " Les Hauts Ph^nomenes de la Magie," p. v., Preface.
THE BIOGRAPHERS OF THE DEVIL. 15
A — men !
This is an unexpected honor indeed, for our American " controls " in
general, and the innocent "Indian guides" in particular. *To be thus
introduced in Rome as princes of the Empire of Eblis, is more than they
could ever hope for in other lands.
Without in the least suspecting that she was working for the future
welfare of her enemies — the spiritualists and spiritists — the Church, some
twenty years since, in tolerating des Mousseaux and de Mirville as the
biographers of the Devil, and giving her approbation thereto, tacitly con-
fessed the literary copartnership.
M. the Chevalier Gougenot des Mousseaux, and his friend and colla-
borateur, the Marquis Eudes de Afirville, to judge by their long titles,
must be aristocrats J>ur sang, and they are, moreover, writers of no small
erudition and talent. Were they to show themselves a little more parsi-
monious of double points of exclamation following every vituperation,
and invective against Satan and his worshippers, their style would be fault-
less. As it is, the crusade against the enemy of mankind was fierce, and
lasted for over twenty years.
What with the Catholics piling up their psychological phenomena to
prove the existence of a personal devil, and the Count de Gasparin, an
ancient minister of Louis Philippe, collecting volumes of other facts to
prove the contrary, the spiritists of France have contracted an everlast-
ing debt of gratitude toward the disputants. The existence of an unseen
spiritual imiverse peopled with invisible beings has now been demon-
strated beyond question. Ransacking the oldest libraries, they have dis-
tilled from the historical records the quintessence of evidence. All
epochs, from the Homeric ages down to the present day, have supplied
their choicest materials to these indefatigable authors. In trying to prove
the authenticity of the miracles wrought by Satan in the days preceding
the Christian era, as well as throughout the middle ages, they have sim-
ply laid a firm foundation for a study of the phenomena in our modern
times.
Though an ardent, uncompromising enthusiast, des Mousseaux un-
wittingly transforms himself into the tempting demon, or — as he is fond
of calling the Devil — the " serpent of Genesis." In his desire to demon-
strate in every manifestation the presence of the Evil One, he only suc-
ceeds in demonstrating that Spiritualism and magic are no new things in
the world, but very ancient twin-brothers, whose origin must be sought
for in the earliest infancy of ancient India, Chaldea, Babylonia, Egypt,
Persia, and Greece.
He proves the existence of "spirits," whether these be angels or
devils, with such a clearness of argument and logic, and such an amount
1 6 ISIS UNVEILED.
of evidence, historical, irrefutable, and strictly authenticated, that little is
left for spiritualist authors who may come after him. How unfortunate
that the scientists, who beheve neither in devil nor spirit, are more than
likely to ridicule M. des Mousseaux's books without reading them, for
they really contain so many facts of profound scientific interest !
But what can we expect in our own age of unbelief, when we find
Plato, over twenty-two centuries ago, complaining of the same ? " Me,
too," says he, in his Euthyphron, " when I say anything in the public
assembly concerning divine things, and predict to the7n what is going to
happen, they ridicule as mad ; and although nothing that I have predicted
has proved untrue, yet they envy all such men as we are. However, we
ought not to heed, but pursue our own way."
The literary resources of the Vatican and other Catholic repositories
of learning must have been freely placed at the disposal of these modern
authors. When one has such treasures at hand— original manuscripts,
papyri, and books pillaged from the richest heathen libraries ; old trea-
tises on magic and alchemy ; and records of all the trials for witchcraft,
and sentences for the same to rack, stake, and torture, it is mighty easy
to write volumes of accusations against the Devil. We affirm on good
grounds that there are hundreds of the most valuable works on the occult
sciences, which are sentenced to eternal concealment from the pubhc,
but are attentively read and studied by the privileged who have access to
the Vatican Library. The laws of nature are the same for heathen sor-
cerer as for Catholic saint ; and a " miracle " may be produced as well by
one as by the other, without the slightest intervention of God or devil.
Hardly had the manifestations begun to attract attention in Europe,
than the clergy commenced their outcry that their traditional enemy had
reappeared under another name, and "divine miracles" also began to
be heard of in isolated instances. First they were confined to humble
individuals, some of whom claimed to have them produced through the
intervention of the Virgin Mary, saints and angels ; others — according to
the clergy — began to suffer from obsession and possession ; for the Devil
must have his share of fame as well as the Deity. Finding that, not-
withstanding the warning, the independent, or so-called spiritual phe-
nomena went on increasing and multiplying, and that these manifesta-
tions threatened to upset the carefully-constructed dogmas of the Church,
the world was suddenly startled by extraordinary intelligence. In 1864,
a whole community became possessed of the Devil. Morzine, and the
awful stories of its demoniacs ; A'alleyres, and the narratives of its well-
authenticated exhibitions of sorcery ; and those of the Presbytere de
Cideville curdled the blood in Catholic veins.
Strange to say, the question has been asked over and over again,
WHY THERE ARE NO MIRACLES IN RUSSIA. 1/
why the " divine " miracles and most of the obsessions are so strictly
confined to Roman Catholic dioceses and countries ? Why is it that
since the Reformation there has been scarcely one single mvine " mira-
cle " in a Protestant land? Of course, the answer we must expect from
Catholics is, that the latter are peopled by heretics, and abandoned by
God. Then why are there no more Church-miracles in Russia, a coun-
try whose religion differs from the Roman Catholic faith but in external
forms of rites, its fundamental dogmas being identically the same, except
as to the emanation of the Holy Ghost ? Russia has her accepted saints
and thaumaturgical relics, and miracle-working images. The St. Mitro-
phaniy of Voroneg is an authenticated miracle-worker, but his miracles
are limited to heaUng ; and though hundreds upon hundreds have been
healed through faith, and though the old cathedral is full of magnetic ef-
fluvia, and whole generations will go on believing in his i^ower, and some
persons will always be healed, still no such miracles are heard of in Rus-
sia as the Madonna-walking, and Madonna letter-writing, and statue-talk-
ing of CathoHc countries. Why is this so .' Sunply because the emperors
have strictly forbidden that sort of thing. The Czar, Peter the Great,
stopped every spurious " divine " njiracle with one frown of his mighty
brow. He declared he would have no false miracles played by the holy
icones (images of saints), and they disappeared forever. *
There are cases on record of isolated and independent phenomena
exhibited by certain images in the last century ; the latest was the bleed-
ing of the cheek of an image of the Virgin, when a soldier of Napoleon
cut her face in two. This miracle, alleged to have happened in 1812, in
the days of the invasion by the " grand army," was the final farewell.f
* Dr. Stanley: "Lectures on the Eastern Church," p. 407.
■j- In the government of Tambov, a gentleman, a rich landed proprietor, had a curious
case happen in his family during the Hungarian campaign of 1S4S. His only and much-
beloved nephew, whom, having no children, he had adopted as a son, was in the Russian
army. The elderly couple had a portrait of his — a water-color painting — constantly,
during the meals, placed on the table in front of the young man's usual seat. One
evening as the family, with some friends, were at their early tea, the glass over the por-
trait, without any one touching it, was shattered to atoms with a loud explosion. As
the aunt of the young soldier caught the picture in her hand she saw the forehead and
head besmeared with blood. The guests, in order to quiet her, attributed the blood to
her having £Ut her fingers with the broken glass. But, examine as they would, they
could not find the vestige of a cut on her fingers, and no one had touched the picture but
herself. Alarmed at her state of excitement the husband, pretending to examine the
portrait more closely, cut his finger on purpose, and then tried to assure her that it was
his blood and that, in the first excitement, he had touched the frame without any one
remarking it. All was in vain, the old lady felt sure that Dimitry was killed. She
began to have masses said for him daily at the village church, and arrayed the whole
1 8 ISIS UNVEILED.
But since then, although the three successive emperors have been pious
men. their will has been respected, and the images and saints have
remained quiet, and hardly been spoken of except as connected with
religious worship. In Poland, a land of furious ultramontanism, there
wer°e, at different times, desperate attempts at miracle-doing. They died
at birth, however, for the argus-eyed police were there ; a Catholic mira-
cle in Poland, made public by the priests, generally meaning pohtical
revolution, bloodshed, and war.
Is It then, not permissible to at least suspect that if, in one country
divine miracles may be arrested by civil and military law, and in another
they never occur, we must search for the explanation of the two facts in
some natural cause, instead of attributing them to either god or devil ?
In our opinion— if it is worth anything— the whole secret may be
accounted for as follows. In Russia, the clergy know better than to
bewilder their parishes, whose piety is sincere and faith strong without
miracles ; they know that nothing is better calculated than the latter to
sow seeds of distrust, doubt, and finally of skepticism which leads directly
to atheism. Moreover the climate is less propitious, and the magnetism
of the average population too positive, too healthy, to call forth independ-
ent phenomena ; and fraud would not answer. On the other hand,
neither in Protestant Germany, nor England, nor yet in America, since
the days of the Reformation, has the clergy had access to any of the Vati-
can secret libraries. Hence they are all but poor hands at the magic of
Albertus Magnus.
As for America being overflowed with sensitives and mediums, the
reason for it is partially attributable to climatic influence and especially
to the physiological condition of the population. Since the days of the
Salem witchcraft, 200 years ago, when the comparatively few settlers had
pure and unadulterated blood in their veins, nothing much had been
heard of " spirits" or "mediums" until 1840. * The phenomena then
first appeared among the ascetic and exalted Shakers, whose religious
aspirations, peculiar mode of life, moral purity, and physical chastity
all led to the production of independent phenomena of a psychological
household in deep mourning. Several weeks later, an official communication was
received from the colonel of the regiment, stating that their nephew was killed by a
fragment of a shell which had carried off the upper part of his head.
* Executions for witchcraft took place, not much later than a century ago, in other
of the American provinces. Notoriously there were negroes executed in New Jersey by
burning at the stake — the penalty denounced in several States. Even in South Caro-
lina, in 1865, when the State government was " reconstructed," after the civil war the
statutes inflicting death for witchcraft were found to be still unrepealed. It is not a
hundred years since they have been enforced to the murderous letter of their text.
THE PHYSICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL AMERICAN TYPE. I9
as well as physical nature. Hundreds of thousands, and even millions
of men from various climates and of different constitutions and habits,
have, since 1692, invaded North America, and by intermarrying have sub-
stantially changed the physical type of the inhabitants. Of what country
in the world do the women's constitutions bear comparison with the deli-
cate, nervous, and sensitive constitutions of the feminine portion of the
population of the'United States ? We were struck on our arrival in the
country with the semi-transparent delicacy of skin of the natives of both
sexes. Compare a hard-working Irish factory girl or boy, with one from
a genuine American family. Look at their hands. One works as hard
as the other ; they are of equal age, and both seemingly healthy ; and
still, while the hands of the one, after an hour's soaping, will show a skin
little softer than that of a young alligator, those of the other, notwith-
standing constant use, will allow you to observe the circulation of the
blood under the thin and delicate epidermis. No wonder, then, that
while America is the conservatory of sensitives the majority of its clergy,
unable to produce divine or any other miracles, stoutly deny the possi-
bility of any phenomena except those produced by tricks and juggling.
And no wonder also that the Catholic priesthood, who are practically
aware of the existence of magic and spiritual phenomena, and believe in
them while dreading their consequences, try to attribute the whole to the
agency of the Devil.
Let us adduce one more argument, if only for the sake of circum-
stantial evidence. In what countries have " divine miracles " flourished
most, been most frequent and most stupendous ? Catholic Spain, and
Pontifical Italy, beyond question. And which more than these two, has
had access to ancient literature ? Spain was famous for her libraries ;
the Moors were celebrated for their profound learning in alchemy and
other sciences. The Vatican is the storehouse of an immense number
of ancient manuscripts. During the long interval of nearly 1,500 years
they have been accumulating, from trial after trial, books and manuscripts
confiscated from their sentenced victims, to their own profit. The Cath-
olics may plead that the books were generally committed to the flames ;
that the treatises of famous sorcerers and enchanters perished with their
accursed authors. But the Vatican, if it could speak, could tell a dif-
ferent story. It knows too well of the existence of certain closets and
rooms, access to which is had but by the very few. It knows that the
entrances to these secret hiding-places are so cleverly concealed from
sight in the carved frame-work and under the profuse ornamentation of
the library-walls, that there have even been Popes who lived and died
within the precmcts of the palace without ever suspecting their existence.
But these Popes were neither Sylvester II., Benedict IX., John XX., nor
20 ISIS UNVEILED.
the Vlth and Vllth Gregory ; nor yet the famous Borgia of toxicolo^cal
memory. Neither were those who remained ignorant of the hidden lore
friends of the sons of Loyola.
Where, in the records of European Magic, can we iind cleverer
enchanters than in the mysterious solitudes of the cloister ? Albert
Magnus, the famous Bishop and conjurer of Ratisbon, was never sur-
passed in his art. Roger Bacon was a monk, and Thomas Aquinas one
of the most learned pupils of Albertus. Trithemius, Abbot of the
Spanheim Benedictines, was the teacher, friend, and confidant of Corne-
lius Agrippa; and while the confederations of the Theosophists were
scattered broadcast about Germany, where they first originated, assist-
ing one another, and struggling for years for the acquirement of esoteric
knowledge, any person who knew how to become the favored pupil of cer-
tain monks, might very soon be proficient in all the important branches
of occult learning.
This is all in history and cannot be easily denied. Magic, in all its
aspects, was widely and nearly openly practiced by the clergy till the
Reformation. And even he who was once called the " Father of the
Reformation," the famous John Reuchlin, * author of the Mirific Word
and friend of Pico di Mirandola, the teacher and instructor of Erasmus,
Luther, and Melancthon, was a kabalist and occultist.
The ancient Soriilegium, or divination by means of Sortes or lots —
an art and practice now decried by the clergy as an abomination, desig-
nated by Stat. lo Jac. as felony, f and by Stat. 12 Carolus I J. ex-
cepted out of the general pardons, on the ground of being sorcery —
was widely practiced by the clergy and monks. Nay, it was sanctioned
by St. Augustine himself, who does not " disapprove of this method of
learning futurity, provided it be not used for worldly purposes." More
than that, he confesses having practiced it himself. J
Aye ; but the clergy called it Sortes Sa?tctorum, when it was they
who practiced it ; while the Sortes Prce.nestince, succeeded by the Sortes
Homcric(C and Sortes Virgiliana, were abominable heathenism, the
worship of the Devil, when used by any one else.
Gregory de Tours informs us that when the clergy resorted to the
Sortes their custom was to lay the £ible on the altar, and to pray the
Lord that He would discover His will, and disclose to them futurity in
one of the verses of the book. Gilbert de Nogent writes that in his days
* Vide the title-page on tlie English translation of Mayerhoff's " Reuchlin und
Seine Zeit," Berlin, 1830. "The Life and Times of John Reuchlin, or Capnion, the
Father of the German Reformation," by F. Barham, London, 1843.
f Lord Coke : 3 " Institutes," fol. 44.
I Vidi "The Life of St. Gregory of Tours."
- i
EPISCOPAL DIVINATION BY THE "LOT. 21
(about the twelfth century) the custom was, at the consecration of
bishops, to consult the Sortes Sanctorum, to thereby learn the success
and fate of the episcopate. On the other hand, we are told that the Sor-
tes Sanctorum were condemned by the Council of Agda, in 506. In this
case again we are left to inquire, in which instance has the infallibihty of
the Church failed ? Was it when she prohibited that which was practiced
by her greatest saint and patron, Augustine, or in the twelfth centur)',
when it was openly and with the sanction of the same Church practiced
by the clergy for the benefit of the bishop's elections ? Or, must we still
believe that in both of these contradictory cases tlie Vatican was inspired
by the direct " spirit of God? "
If any doubt that Gregory of Tours approved of a practice that pre-
vails to this day, more or less, even among strict Protestants, let them
read this : " Lendastus, Earl of Tours, who was for ruining me with
Queen Fredegonde, coming to Tours, big with evil designs against me, I
withdrew to my oratory under a deep concern, where I took the Psalms.
. . . My heart revived within me when I cast my eyes on this of the
seventy-seventh Psalm : ' He caused them to go on with confidence,
whilst the sea swallowed up their enemies.' Accordingly, the count
spoke not a word to my prejudice ; and leaving Tours that very day, the
boat in which he was, sunk in a storm, but his skill in swimming saved
him."
The sainted bishop simply confesses here to having practiced a bit of
sorcery. Every mesmerizer knows the power of u<ill during an intense
desire bent on any particular subject. Whether in consequence of " co-
incidents " or otherwise, the opened verse suggested to his mind revenge
by drowning. Passing the remainder of the day in " deep concern," and
possessed by this aU-absorbing thought, the saint — it may be unconsciously
— exercises his will on the subject ; and thus while imagining in the acci-
dent the hand of God, he simply becomes a sorcerer exercising his mag-
netic will which reacts on the person feared ; and the count barely
escapes with his life. Were the accident decreed by God, the culprit
would have been drowned ; for a simple bath could not have altered his
malevolent resolution against St. Gregory had he been very intent on it.
Furthermore, we find anathemas fulminated against this lottery of
fate, at the council of Varres, which forbids " all ecclesiastics, under pain
of excommunication, to perform that kind of divination, or to pry into
futurity, by looking into any book, or writing, whatsoever." The same
prohibition is pronounced at the coimcils of Agda in 506, of Orleans, in
SIX, of Auxerre in 595, and finally at the council of Aenham in mo ;
the latter condemning " sorcerers, witches, diviners, such as occasioned
death by magical operations, and who practiced fortune-telling by the
22 ISIS UNVEILED.
holy-book lots ; " and the complaint of the joint clergy against de Gar-
lande, their bishop at Orleans, and addressed to Pope Alexander III.,
concludes in this manner : " Let your apostolical hands put on strength
to strip naked the iniquity of this man, that the curse prognosticated on
the day of his consecration may overtake him ; for the gospels bemg
opened on the altar according to custom, the first words were : and the
young man, leaving his linen cloth, fled from them naked!' *
Why then roast the lay-magicians and consulters of books, and cano-
nize the ecclesiastics ? Simply because the mediseval as well as the
modern phenomena, manifested through laymen, whether produced
through occult knowledge or happening independently, upset the claims
of both the Catholic and Protestant Churches to divine miracles. In the
face of reiterated and unimpeachable evidence it became impossible for
the former to maintain successfully the assertion that seemingly miracu-
lous manifestations by the "good angels" and God's direct intervention
could be produced exclusively by her chosen ministers and holy saints.
Neither could the Protestant well maintain on the same ground that
miracles had ended with the apostolic ages. For, whether of the same
nature or not, the modern phenomena claimed close kinship with the
biblical ones. The magnetists and healers of our century came into
direct and open competition with the apostles. The Zouave Jacob, of
France, had outrivalled the prophet Elijah in recalling to life persons
who were seemingly dead ; and Alexis, the somnambulist, mentioned by
Mr. Wallace in his work,f was, by his lucidity, putting to shame apostles,
prophets, and the Sibyls of old. Since the burning of the last witch, the
great Revolution of France, so elaborately prepared by the league of
the secret societies and their clever emissaries, had blown over Europe
and awakened terror in the bosom of the clergy. It had, like a destroy-
ing hurricane, swept away in its course those best allies of the Church,
the Roman Catholic aristocracy. A sure foundation was now laid for
the right of individual opinion. The world was freed from ecclesiastical
tyranny by opening an unobstructed path to Napoleon the Great, who
had given the deathblow to the Inquisition. This great slaughter-house
of the Christian Church — wherein she butchered, in the name of the
I^ainb, all the sheep arbitrarily declared scurvy — was in ruins, and she
found herself left to her own responsibility and resources.
So long as the phenomena had appeared only sporadically, she had
always felt herself powerful enough to repress the consequences. Super-
* Translated from the original document in the Archives of Orleans, France j also
see " Sortes and Sortilegium ; " " Life of Peter de Blois."
f "Miracles and Modern Spiritualism."
MIRACLES BY THE LAITY. 23
stition and belief in the Devil were as strong as ever, and Science had not
yet dared to publicly measure her forces with those of supernatural Religion.
Meanwhile the enemy had slowly but surely gained ground. All at once
it broke out with an unexpected violence. " Miracles " began to appear
in full daylight, and passed from their mystic seclusion into the domain
of natural law, where the profane hand of Science was ready to strip off
their sacerdotal mask. Still, for a time, the Church held her position, and
with the powerful help of superstitious fear checked the progress of the
intruding force. But, when in succession appeared mesmerists and som-
nambulists, reproducing the physical and mental phenomenon of ecstasy,
hitherto believed to be the special gift of saints ; when the passion for
the turning tables had reached in France and elsewhere its climax of
fury ; when the psychography — alleged spiritual — from a simple curiosity
had developed itself and settled into an unabated interest, and finally
ebbed into religious mysticism ; when the echoes aroused by the first raps
of Rochester, crossing the oceans, spread until they were re-percussed from
nearly every corner of the world — then, and only then, the Latin Church
was fully awakened to a sense of danger. Wonder after wonder was
reported to have occurred in the spiritual circles and the lecture-rooms
of the mesmerists ; the sick were healed, the blind made to see, the lame
to walk, the deaf to hear. J. R. Newton in America, and Du Potet in
France, were healing the multitude without the slightest claim to divine
intervention. The great discovery of Mesmer, which reveals to the
earnest inquirer the mechanism of nature, mastered, as if by magical
power, organic and inorganic bodies.
But this was not the worst. A more direful calamity for the Church
occurred in the evocation from the upper and nether worlds of a multi-
tude of " spirits," whose private bearing and conversation gave the direct
lie to the most cherished and profitable dogmas of the Church. These
" spirits " claimed to be the identical entities, in a disembodied state, of
fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, friends and acquaintances of the
persons viewing the weird phenomena. The Devil seemed to have no
objective existence, and this struck at the very foundation upon which
the chair of St. Peter rested.* Not a spirit except the mocking nianni-
* There were two chairs of the titular apostle at Rome. The clergy, frightened at
the uninterrupted evidence furnished by scientific research, at last decided to confront
the enemy, and we find the *' Chronique des Arts " giving the cleverest, and at the same
time most jfesuitical, explanation of the fact. According to their story, " The increase
in the number of the faithful decided Peter upon making Rome henceforth the centre
of his action. The cemetery of Ostrianum was too distant and would 7ioi snjffice for
the reunions of the Christians. The motive which had induced the Apostle to confer
on Linus and Cletus successively the episcopal character, in order to render them capa-
24 IS.[S UNVEILED.
kins of Planchette would confess to the most distant relationship with the
Satanic majesty, or accredit him with the governorship of a single mch
of territory. The clergy felt their prestige growing weaker every day,
as they saw the people impatiently shaking off, in the broad daylight
of truth, the dark veils with which they had been blindfolded for so many
centuries. Then finally, fortune, which previously had been on their side
in the long-waged conflict between theology and science, deserted to
their adversary. The help of the latter to the study of the occult side of
nature was truly precious and timely, and science has unwittingly widened
the once narrow path of the phenomena into a broad highway. Had not
ble of sharing the solicitudes of a church whose extent was to be without limits, led
naturally to a multiplication of the places of meeting. The particular residence of Peter
was therefore fixed at Viminal ; and there was established that mysterious Chair, the
symbol of power and truth. The august seat which was venerated at the Ostrian Cata-
combs was not, however, removed. Peter still visited this cradle of the Roman Church,
and often, without doubt, exercised his holy functions there, A. second Chair, expressing
the same mystery as the first, was set up at Cornelia, and it is this which has come down
to us through the ages."
Now, so far from it being possible that there ever were two genuine chairs of this
kind, the majority of critics show that Peter never was at Rome at all ; the reasons are
many and unanswerable. Perhaps we had best begin by pointing to the works of Justin
Martyr. This great champion of Christianity, writing in the early part of the second
century in Rome, where he fixed his abode, eager to get hold of the least proof in favor
of the truth for which he suffered, seems perfectly unconscious of St. Peter'' s existence! I
Neither does any other writer of any consequence mention him in connection with
the Church of Rome, earlier than the days of Irenieus, when the latter set himself to
invent a new religion, drawn from the depths of his imagination. We refer the reader
anxious to learn more to the able work of Mr. George Reber, entitled " The Christ of
Paul." The arguments of this author are conclusive. The above article in the "Chron-
ique des Arts," speaks of the increase of the faithful to such an extent that Ostrianum
could not contain the number of Christians. Now, if Peter was at Rome at all— runs
Mr. Reber' s argument — it must have been between the years A. D. 64 and 69 ; for at
64 he was at Babylon, from whence he %vrote epistles and letters to Rome, and at
some time between 64 and 68 (the reign of Nero) he either died a mai-tyr or in his bed,
for Irenteus makes him deliver the Church of Rome, together with Paul ( ! ? ) (whom
he persecuted and quarrelled with all his life), into the hands of Linns, who became
bishop in 69 (see Reber's " Christ of Paul," p. 122). We will treat of it more fully in
chapter iii.
Now, we ask, in the name of common sense, how could the faithful of Peter's
Church increase at such a rate, when Nero trapped and killed them like so many
mice during his reign ? History shows the few Christians fleeing from Rome, wherever
they could, to avoid the persecution of the emperor, and the "Chronique des Arts "
makes them increase and multiply ! " Christ," the article goes on to say, "willed that
this visible sign of the doctrmal authority of his vicar should also have its portion of
immortality ; one can follow it from age to age in the documents of the Roman Church."
TertuUian formally attests its existence in his book "De Proescriptionibus." Eager to
learn everything concerning so interesting a subject, we would like to be shown when
HISTORY OF THE CHAIR OF PETER. 2$
this conflict culminated at the nick of time, we might have seen repro-
duced on a miniature scale the disgraceful scenes of the episodes of
Salem witchcraft and the Nuns of Loudun. As it was, the clergy were
muzzled.
But if science has unintentionally helped the progress of the occult
phenomena, the latter have reciprocally aided science herself. Until
the days when newly-reincarnated philosophy boldly claimed its place in
the world, there had been but few scholars who had undertaken the difficult
task of studying comparative theology. This science occupies a domain
heretofore penetrated by few explorers. The necessity which it involved
of being well acquainted with the dead languages, necessarily limited the
number of students. Besides, there was less popular need for it so long
as people could not replace the Christian orthodoxy by something more
tangible. It is one of the most undeniable facts of psychology, that the
average man can as little exist out of a religious element of some kind,
as a fish out of the water. The voice of truth, " a voice stronger than
the voice of the mightiest thunder," speaks to the inner man in the nine-
teenth century of the Christian era, as it spoke in the corresponding
century B.C. It is a useless and unprofitable task to ofifer to humanity
the choice between a future life and annihilation. The only chance that'
remains for those friends of human progress who seek to establish for
the good of mankind a faith, henceforth stripped entirely of superstition
did Christ WILL anything of the kind ? However : ' ' Ornaments of ivory have been fitted
to the front and back of the chair, but only on those parts repaired with acacia-wood.
Those which cover the panel in front are divided into three superimposed rows, each
containing six plaques of ivory, on which are engraved various subjects, among others the
' Labors of Hercules.' Several of the plaques were wrongly placed, and seemed to have
been affixed to the chair at a time when the remains of antiquity were employed as orna-
ments, without much regard to fitness." This is the point. The article was written
simply as a clever answer to several facts published during the present century. Bower,
in his "History of the Popes " (vol. li., p. 7), narrates that in the year 1662, while cleaning
one of the chairs, "the ' Twelve Labors of Hercules' unluckily appeared engraved upon it,"
after which the chair was removed and another substituted. But in 1795, when Bona-
parte's troops occupied Rome, the chair was again examined. This time there was
found the Mahometan confession of faith, in Arabic letters : " There is no Deity
but Allah, and Mahomet is his Apostle." (See appendix to "Ancient Symbol- Worship,"
by H. M. Westropp and C. Staniland Wake.) In the appendix Prof. Alexander
Wilder very justly remarks as follows : " We presume that the Apostle of the Circum-
cision, as Paul, his great rival, styles him, was never at the Imperial City, nor had a
successor there, not even in the ghetto. The ' Chau- of Peter,' therefore, is sacred
rather than apostolical. Its sanctity proceeded, however, from the esoteric religion of
the former times of Rome. The hierophant of the Mysteries probably occupied it on
the day of initiations, when exhibiting to the candidates the Petronia (stone tablet
containing the last revelation made by the hierophant to the neophyte for initiation)."
26 ISIS UNVEILED.
and dogmatic fetters is to address them in the words of Joshua : " Choose
ye this day whom you will serve ; whether the gods which your fathers
served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the
Amorites, in whose land ye dwell.'' *
"The science of religion," wrote Max Miiller in i860, "is only just
beginning. . . . During the last fifty years the authentic documents of
the most important religions in the world have been recovered in a most
unexpected and almost miraculous mattncr.\ We have now before us the
Canonical books of Buddhism ; the Zend-Avesta of Zoroaster is no
longer a sealed book ; and the hymns of the Rig- Veda have revealed a
state of religions anterior to the first beginnings of that mythology which
in Homer and Hesiod stands before us as a mouldering ruin." \
In their insatiable desire to extend the dominion of blind faith, the
early architects of Christian theology had been forced to conceal, as
much as it was possible, the true sources of the same. To this end
they are said to have burned or otherwise destr03'ed all the original man-
uscripts on the Kabala, magic, and occult sciences upon which they
could lay their hands. They ignorantly supposed that the most danger-
ous writings of this class had perished with the last Gnostic ; but some
day they may discover their mistake. Other authentic and as important
documents will perhaps reappear in a " most unexpected and almost
miraculous manner."
* Joshua xxiv. 15.
\ One of the most surprising facts that have come under our observation, is that
students of profound research should not couple the frequent recurrence of these "un-
expected and almost miraculous " discoveries of important documents, at the most op-
portune moments, with a premeditated design. Is it so strange that the custodians of
"Pagan" lore, seeing that the proper moment had arrived, should cause the needed
document, book, or relic to fall as if by accident in the right man's way? Geological
surveyors and explorers even as competent as Humboldt and Tschuddi, have not dis-
covered the hidden mines from which the Peruvian Incas dug their treasure, although
the latter confesses that the present degenerate Indians have the secret. In 1S39, Per-
ring, the archiEologist, proposed to the sheik of an Arab village two purses of gold, if he
helped him to discover the entrance to the hidden passage leading to the sepulchral
chambers in the North Pyramid of Doshoor. But though his men were o^t of employ-
ment and half stai-ved, the sheik proudly refused to "sell the secret of the dead,"
promising to show it gratis^ when the time would come for it. Is it, then, impossible
that in some other regions of the earth are guarded the remains of that glorious litera-
ture of the past, which was the fruit of its majestic civilization ? What is there so sur-
prising in the idea ? Who knows but that as the Christian Church has unconsciously
begotten free thought by reaction against her own cruelty, rapacity, and dogmatism, the
public mind may be glad to follow the lead of the Orientalists, away from Jerusalem
and towards EUora ; and that then much more will be discovered that is now hidden?
I " Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i., p. 373 ; Semitic Monotheism.
WHAT WAS SAVED FROM THE BRUCKION. 2/
There are strange traditions current in various parts of the East —
on Mount Athos and in the Desert of Nitria, for instance — among
certain monks, and with learned Rabbis in Palestine, who' pass their
lives in commenting upon the Talmud. They say that not all the rolls
and manuscripts, reported in history to have been burned by Csesar, by
the Christian mob, in 389, and by the Arab General Amru, perished as
it is commonly believed ; and the story they tell is the following : At
the time of the contest for the throne, in 51 B.C., between Cleopatra
and her brother Dionysius Ptolemy, the Bruckion, which contained over
seven hundred thousand rolls, all bound in wood and fire-proof parch-
ment, was undergoing repairs, and a great portion of the original man-
uscripts, considered among the most precious, and which were not
duplicated, were stored away in the house of one of the librarians. As
the fire which consumed the rest was but the result of accident, no pre-
cautions had been taken at the time. But they add, that several hours
passed between the burning of the fleet, set on fire by Cffisar's order,
and the moment when the first buildings situated near the harbor caught
fire in their turn ; and that all the librarians, aided by several hundred
slaves attached to the museum, succeeded in saving the most precious of
the rolls. So perfect and solid was the fabric of the parchment, that while
in some rolls the inner pages and the wood-binding were reduced to ashes,
of others the parchment binding remained unscorched. These particu-
lars were all written out in Greek, Latin, and the Chaldeo-Syriac dia-
lect, by a learned youth named Theodas, one of the scribes employed
in the museum. One of these manuscripts is alleged to be preserved
till now in a Greek convent ; and the person who narrated the tradi-
tion to us had seen it himself. He said that many more will see it and
learn where to look for important documents, when a certain prophecy
will be fulfilled ; adding, that most of these works could be found in
Tartary and India.* The monk showed us a copy of the original, which,
of course, we could read but poorly, as we claim but little eiudition in
the matter of dead languages. But we were so particularly struck by
* An after-thought has made us fancy that we can understand what is meant by the
following sentences of Moses of Choreni: "The ancient Asiatics," says he, "five
centuries before our era — and especially the Hindus, the Persians, and the Chaldeans,
had in their possession a quantity of historical and scientific books. These works
were partially borrowed, partially translated in the Greek language, mostly since the
Ptolemies had established the Alexandrian library and encouraged the writers by their
liberalities, so that the Greek language became the deposit of all the sciences"
(" History of Armenia"). Therefore, the greater part of the literature included in
the 700,000 volumes of the Alexandrian Library was due to India, and her next
neighbors.
28 ISIS UNVEILED.
the vivid and picturesque translation of the holy father, that we perfectly
remember some curious paragraphs, which run, as far as we can recall
them, as follows :—" When the Queen of the Sun (Cleopatra) was
brought back to the half-ruined city, after the fire had devoured the
Glory of the World ; and when she saw the mountains of books— or
rolls— covering the half-consumed steps of the estrada ; and when she
perceived that the inside was gone and the indestructible covers alone
remained, she wept in rage and fury, and cursed the meanness of her
fathers who had grudged the cost of the real Perganios for the inside as
well as the outside of the precious rolls." Further, our author, Theodas,
indulges in a joke at the expense of the queen for believing that nearly
all the library was burned ; when, in fact, hundreds and thousands of the
choicest books were safely stored in his own house and those of other
scribes, librarians, students, and philosophers.
No more do sundry very learned Copts scattered all over the East
in Asia Minor, Egypt, and Palestine believe in the total destruction of
the subsequent libraries. For instance, they say that out of the library
of Attains III. of Pergamus, presented by Antony to Cleopatra, not a
volume was destroyed. At that time, according to their assertions, from
the moment that the Christians began to gain power in Alexandria—
about the end of the fourth century — and Anatolius, Bishop of Laodicea,
began to insult the national gods, the Pagan philosophers and learned
theurgists adopted effective measures to preserve the repositories of
their sacred learning. Theophilus, a bishop, who left behind him the
reputation of a most rascally and mercenary villain, was accused by one
named Antoninus, a famous theurgist and eminent scholar of occult
science of Alexandria, with bribing the slaves of the Serapion to steal
books which he sold to foreigners at great prices. History tells us how
Theophilus had the best of the philosophers, in a.d. 389 ; and how his
successor and nephew, the no less infamous Cyril, butchered Hypatia.
Suidas gives us some details about Antoninus, whom he calls Anto-
nius, and his eloquent friend Olympus, the defender of the Serapion.
But history is far from being complete in the miserable remnants of
books, which, crossing so many ages, have reached our own learned cen-
tury ; it fails to give the facts relating to the first five centuries of Chris-
tianity which are preserved in the numerous traditions current in the
East. Unauthenticated as these may appear, there is unquestionably
in the heap of chaff much good grain. That these traditions are not
oftener communicated to Europeans is not strange, when we consider
how apt our travellers are to render themselves antagonistic to the
natives by their skeptical bearing and, occasionally, dogmatic intoler-
ance. When exceptional men like some archccologists, who knew how
THE HIDDEN LIBRARY AT ISHMONIA. 29
to win the confidence and even friendship of certain Arabs, are
favored with precious documents, it is declared simply a " coinci-
dence." And yet there are widespread traditions of the existence of
certain subterranean, and immense galleries, in the neighborhood of
Ishmonia — the " petrified City," in which are stored numberless manu-
scripts and rolls. For no amount of money would the Arabs go near
it. At night, they say, from the crevices of the desolate ruins, sunk
deep in the unwatered sands of the desert, stream the rays from lights
carried to and fro in the galleries by no human hands. The Afrites
study the literature of the antediluvian ages, according to their behef,
and the Djin learns from the magic rolls the lesson of the following
day.
The Encyclopedia Brtta?inica, in its article on Alexandria, says :
"Wlien the temple of Serapis was demolished . . . the valuable library
was pillaged or destroyed ; and twenty years afterwards * the empty shelves
excited the regret . . . etc." But it does not state the subsequent fate of
the pillaged books.
In rivalry of the fierce Mary-worshippers of the fourth century, the
modern clerical persecutors of liberalism and " heresy " would wiUingly
shut up all the heretics and their books in some modern Serapion and
burn them alive.f The cause of this hatred is natural. Modern re-
search has more than ever unveiled the secret. " Is not the worship of
saints and angels now," said Bishop Newton, years ago, " in all respects
the same that the worship of demons was in former times ? The name
only is different, the thing is identically the same . . . the very same
temples, the very same images, which were once consecrated to Jupiter
and the other demons, are now consecrated to the Virgin Mary and
other saints . . . the whole of Paganism is converted and applied to
Popery."
\Vhy not be impartial and add that " a good portion of it was adopted
by Protestant religions also ? "
The very apostolic designation Peter is from the Mysteries. The
hierophant or supreme pontiff bore the Chaldean title -ins, peter, or in-
terpreter. The names Phtah, Peth'r, the residence of Balaam, Patara,
and Patras, the names of oracle-cities, pateres or pateras and, perhaps,
* Bonamy says in " Le Bibliotheque d'Alexandrie," quoting, we suppose, the Pres-
byter Orosius, wlio was an eye-witness, *' thirty years later.''
■)• Since the above was written, the spirit here described has been beautifully exem-
plified at Barcelona, Spain, where the Bishop Fray Joachim invited the local spiritual-
ists to witness a formal burning of spiritual books. We find the account in a paper
called " The Revelation," published at Alicante, which sensibly adds that the perform-
ance was ** a caricature of the memorable epoch of the Inquisition.'*
30 TSIS UNVEILED.
Buddha,* all come from the same root. Jesus says : " Upon this pdra I
will build my Church, and the gates, or rulers of Hades, shall not prevail
against it ; " meaning by petra the rock-temple, and by metaphor, the
Christian Mysteries ; the adversaries to which were the old mystery-gods
of the underworld, who were worshipped in the rites of Isis, Adonis,
Atys, Sabazius, Dionysus, and the Eleusinia. No apostle Peter was ever
at Rome ; but the Pope, seizing the sceptre of the Pontifex Maximus, the
keys of Janus and Kubel6, and adorning his Christian head with the cap
of the Magna Mafer, copied from that of the tiara of Brahmatma, the
Supreme Pontiff of the Initiates of old India, became the successor of
the Pagan high priest, the real Peter-Roma, or Petroma.\
The Roman Catholic Church has two far mightier enemies than the
" heretics " and the " infidels ; " and these are — Couiparative Mythology
and Philology. When such eminent divines as the Rev. James Free-
man Clarke go so much out of their way to prove to their readers that
" Critical Theology from the time of Origen and Jerome . . . and the
Controversial Theology during fifteen centuries, has not consisted in
accepting on authority the opinions of other people," but has shown,
on the contrary, much "acute and comprehensive reasoning," we can but
regret that so much scholarship should have been wasted in attempting
to prove that which a fair survey of the history of theology upsets at
every step. In these "controversies" and critical treatment of the doc-
trines of the Church one can certainly find any amount of " acute rea-
soning," but far more of a still acuter sophistry.
Recently the mass of cumulative evidence has been reinforced to an
extent which leaves little, if any, room for further controversy. A con-
clusive opinion is furnished by too many scholars to doubt the fact that
India was the Alma-]\Tater, not only of the civilization, arts, and sciences,
but also of all the great religions of antiquity ; Judaism, and hence
Christianity, included. Herder places the cradle of humanity in India,
and shows Moses as a clever and relatively wz^^^/^rw compiler of the ancient
Brahmanical traditions : " The river which encircles the country (India)
is the sacred Ganges, which all Asia considers as the paradisaical river.
There, also, is the biblical Gihon, which is none else but the Indus.
The Arabs call it so unto this day, and the names of the countries watered
by it are yet existing among the Hindus." Jacolliot claims to have
translated every ancient palm-leaf manuscript which he had the fortune
of being allowed by the Brahmans of the pagodas to see. In one of liis
* E. PococUe gives the variations of the name Buddha as : Bud'ha, Buddha, Booddha,
Butta, Pout, Pote, Pto, Pte, Phte, Phtha, Phut, etc., etc. See "India in Greece,"
Note, Appendix, 397.
\ The tiara of the Pope is also a perfect copy of that of the Dalai- Lama of Thibet.
ORIGIN OF THE PAPAL TIARA AND KEYS. ' 31
translations, we found passages which reveal to us the undoubted origin
of the keys of St. Peter, and account for the subsequent adoption of the
symbol by their Holinesses, the Popes of Rome.
He shows us, on the testimony of the Agrouchada Parikshai, which
he freely translates as " the Book oj Spirits " (Pitris), that centuries
before our era the initiates of the temple chose a Superior Council, pre-
sided over by the Brahm-titma or supreme chief of all these Initiates.
That this pontificate, which could be exercised only by a Brahman who
had reached the age of eighty years ; * that the Brahm-atnia was sole
guardian of the mystic formula, resume of every science, contained jn the
three mysterious letters,
A
U IVI
which signify creation, conservation, and transformation. He alone
could expound its meaning in the presence of the initiates of the third
and supreme degree. Whomsoever among these initiates revealed to a
profane a single one of the truths, even the smallest of the secrets en-
trusted to his care, was put to death. He who received the confidence
had to share his fate.
"Finally, to crown this able system," says JacoUiot, "there existed a
word still more superior to the mysterious monosyllable — A U M, and
which rendered him who came into the possession of its key nearly the
equal of Brahma himself. The Brahm-4tma alone possessed this key,
and transmitted it in a sealed casket to his successor.
" This unknown word, of which no human power could, even to-day,
when the Brahmanical authority has been crushed under the Mongolian
and European invasions, to-day, when each pagoda has its Brahm-atma, f
force the disclosure, was engraved in a golden triangle and preserved in
a sa,nctuary of the temple of Asgartha, whose Brahm-atma alone held the
keys. He also bore upon his tiara two crossed keys supported by two
kneeling Brahmans, symbol of the precious deposit of which he had the
keeping. . . . This word and this triangle were engraved upon the tablet
of the ring that this religious chief wore as one of the signs of his dig-
nity ; it was also framed in a golden sun on the altar, where every morn-
ing the Supreme Pontiff offered the sacrifice of the sarvameda, or sacri-
fice to all the forces of nature." t
* It is the traditional policy of the College of Cardinals to elect, whenever practi-
cable, the new Pope among the oldest valetudinarians. The hierophant of the Eleusi-
nia was likewise always an old man, and unmarried.
•f This is not correct. | " Le Spiritisme dans le Monde," p. 28.
32 • ISIS UNVEILED.
Is this clear enough ? And will the Catholics still maintain that it
M-as the Brahraans of 4,000 years ago who copied the ritual, symbols, and
dress of the Roman Pontiffs ? We would not feel in the least surprised.
Without going very far back into antiquity for comparisons, if we only
stop at the fourth and fifth centuries of our era, and contrast the so-called
"heathenism" of the third Neo-platonic Eclectic School with the grow-
ing Christianity, the result may not be favorable to the latter. Even at
that early period, when the new religion had hardly outlined its contra-
dictory dogmas ; when the champions of the bloodthirsty Cyril knew not
themselves whether Mary was to become " the Mother of God," or rank
as a " demon " in company with Isis ; when the memory of the meek and
lowly Jesus still lingered lovingly in every Christian heart, and his words
of mercy and charity vibrated still in the air, even then the Christians
were outdoing the Pagans in every kind of ferocity and religious intoler-
ance.
And if we look still farther back, and seek for examples of true
Christism, in ages when Buddhism had hardly superseded Brahmanism in
India, and the name of Jesus was only to be pronounced three centuries
later, what do we find ? Which of the holy pillars of the Church has ever
elevated himself to the level of religious tolerance and noble simplicity
of character of some heathen ? Compare, for instance, the Hindu
Asoka, who lived 300 B.C., and the Carthaginian St. Augustine, who flour-
ished three centuries after Christ. According to Max Miiller, this is
what is found engraved on the rocks of Girnar, Dhauli, and Kapurdigiri :
" Piyadasi, the king beloved of the gods, desires that the ascetics of
all creeds might reside in all places. All these ascetics profess alike the
command which people should exercise over themselves, and the purity
of the soul. But people have different opinions and different inclina-
tions."
And here is what Augustine wrote after his baptism : " Wondrous
depth of thy words ! whose surface, behold ! is before us, inviting to
little ones ; yet are they a wondrous depth, O my God, a wondrous
depth ! It is awful to look therein ; yes ... an awfulness of honor,
and a trembling of love. Thy enemies [read Pagans] thereof I hate
vehemently ; Oh, that thou wouldst slay them with thy two-edged sword,
that they might no longer be enemies to it ; for so do I love to have them
slain." *
Wonderful spirit of Christianity ; and that from a Manichean con-
verted to the religion of one who even on his cross prayed for his ene-
mies !
* Translated by Prof. Draper for "Conflict between Religion and Science;"
book xii.
THE ANCIENT OF DAYS. 33
Who the enemies of the "Lord" were, according to the Christians, is
not difficult to surmise ; the few inside the Augustinian fold werg His new
children and favorites, who had supplanted in His affections the sons of
Israel, His " chosen people." The rest of mankind were His natural foes.
The teeming multitudes of heathendom were proper food for the flames
of hell; the handful within the Church communion, "heirs of salvation."
But if such a prescriptive policy was just, and its enforcement was
" sweet savor " in the nostrils of the " Lord," why not scorn also the
Pagan rites and philosophy ? Why draw so deep from the wells of wisdom,
dug and filled up to brim by the same heathen ? Or did the fathers, in
their desire to imitate the chosen people whose time-worn shoes they
were trying to fit upon their feet, contemplate the reenaction of the
spoliation-scene of the Exodus 1 Did they propose, in fleeing from
heathendom as the Jews did from Egypt, to carry off the valuables of its
religious allegories, as the "chosen ones" did the gold and silver orna-
ments ?
It certainly does seem as if the events of the first centuries of Chris-
tianity were but the reflection of the images thrown upon the mirror of
the future at the time of the Exodus. During the stormy days of Irenaeus,
the Platonic philosophy, with its mystical submersion into Deity, was not
so obnoxious after all to the new doctrine as to prevent the Christians
from helping themselves to its abstruse metaphysics in every way and
manner. Allying themselves with the ascetical theurapeut» — forefathers
and models of the Christian monks and hermits, it was in Alexandria, let
it be remembered, that they laid the first foundations of the purely Pla-
tonic trinitarian doctrine. It became the Plato-Philonean doctrine later,
and such as we find it now. Plato considered the divine nature under a
three-fold modification of the First Cause, the reason or Logos, and the
soul or spirit of the universe. "The three archial or original principles,"
says Gibbon,* " were represented in the Platonic system as three gods,
united with each other by a mysterious and ineffable generation." Blend-
ing this transcendental idea with the more hypostatic figure of the Logos
of Philo, whose doctrine was that of the oldest Kabala, and who viewed
the King Messiah, as the metatron, or "the angel of the Lord," the
Legatus descended in flesh, but not the Ancient of Days Himself; f the
Christians clothed with this mythical representation of the Mediator for
the fallen race of Adam, Jesus, the son of Mary. Under this unexpected
garb his personality was all but lost. In the modern Jesus of the Chris-
tian Church, we find the ideal of the imaginative Iren?eus, not the adept
* " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."
f " Sohar Comment.," Gen. xl. lo; " Kabbal. Denud.," i., 528.
3
34 ISIS UNVEILED.
of the Essenes, the obscure reformer from Galilee. We see him under
the disfigured Plato-Philonean mask, not as the disciples heard him on
the mount.
So far then the heathen philosophy had helped them in the building
of the principal dogma. But when the theurgists of the third Neo-pla-
tonic school, deprived of their ancient Mysteries, strove to blend the
doctrines of Plato with those of Aristotle, and by combining the two
philosophies added to their theosophy the primeval doctrines of the
Oriental Kabala, then the Christians from rivals became persecutors.
Once that the metaphysical allegories of Plato were being prepared to be
discussed in pubhc in the form of Grecian dialectics, all the elaborate
system of the Christian trinity would be unravelled and the divine pres-
tige completely upset. The eclectic school, reversing the order, had
adopted the inductive method ; and this method became its death-knell.
Of all things on earth, logic and reasonable explanations vie.T?: the most
hateful to the new religion of mystery ; for they threatened to unveil the
whole ground-work of the trinitarian conception ; to apprise the multi-
tude of the doctrine of emanations, and thus destroy the unity of the
whole. It could not be permitted, and it was not. History records the
ChristVik.& means that were resorted to.
The universal doctrine of emanations, adopted from time immemo-
rial by the greatest schools which taught the kabalistic, Alexandrian, and
Oriental philosophers, gives the key to that panic among the Christian
fathers. That spirit of Jesuitism and clerical craft, which prompted
Parkhurst, many centuries later, to suppress in his Hebrew Lexicon thS
true meaning of the first word of Genesis, originated in those days of
war against the expiring Neo-platonic and eclectic school. The fathers
had decided to pervert the meaning of the word " daimon," * and they
dreaded above all to have the esoteric and true meaning of the word
Rasit unveiled to the multitudes ; for if once the true sense of this
sentence, as well as that of the Hebrew word asdt (translated in the
Septuagint ^^ angels" while it means emanations),! were understood
rightly, the mystery of the Christian trinity would have crumbled, carry-
ing in its downfall the new religion into the same heap of ruins with the
ancient Mysteries. This is the true reason why dialecticians, as well as
Aristotle himself, the "prying philosopher," were ever obnoxious to
Christian theology. Even Luther, while on his work of reform, feeling
the ground insecure under his feet, notwithstanding that the dogmas had
* " The beings which the philosophers of other peoples distinguish by the name
' Dfemons,' Moses names ' Angels,' " sa)'S Philo Judfeus. — " De Gigant," i. 253.
f Deuteronomy xxxiii. 2., mC'X is translated "fiery law" in the English Bible.
ORPHEAN VIEWS OF ETHER. 35
been reduced by him to their simplest expression, gave full vent to his
fear and hatred for Aristotle. The amount of abuse he heaped ifpon the
memory of the great logician can only be equalled — never surpassed —
by the Pope's anathemas and invectives against the liberals of the Italian
government. Compiled together, they might easily fill a copy of a nevv
encycloptedia with models for monkish diatribes.
Of course the Christian clergy can never get reconciled with a doc-
trine based on the application of strict logic to discursive reasoning ?
The number of those who have abandoned theology on this account has
never been made known. They have asked questions and been forbid-
den to ask them ; hence, separation, disgust, and often a despairing
plunge into the abyss of atheism. The Orphean views of ether as chief
medium betwee?i God and created matter were likewise denounced. The
Orphic ^ther recalled too vividly the Archeus, the Soul of the World,
and the latter was in its metaphysical sense as closely related to the
emanations, being the first manifestation — Sephira, or Divine Light.
And when could the latter be more feared than at that critical moment ?
Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, Chalcidius, Methodius, and Maimoni-
des, on the authority of the Targum of Jerusalem, the orthodox and
greatest authority of the Jews, held that the first two words in the book
of Genesis — b-rasit, mean lVisdoi?i, or the Principle. And that the
idea of these words meaning " in the beginning " was never shared but
by the profane, who were not allowed to penetrate any deeper into the
esoteric sense of the sentence. Beausobre, and after him Godfrey Hig-
gins, have demonstrated the fact. " All things," says the Kabala, " are
derived from one great Principle, and this principle is the unknown and
invisible God. From Him a substantia^ power immediately proceeds,
which is the image of God, and the source of all subsequent emanations.
This second principle sends forth, by the energy {or will s^nA force) oi
emanation, other natures, which are more or less perfect, according to
their different degrees of distance, in the scale of emanation, from the
First Source of existence, and which constitute different worlds, or orders
of being, all united to the eternal power from which they proceed.
Matter is nothing more than the most remote effect of the emanative energy
of the Deity. The material world receives its form from the immediate
agency of powers far beneath the First Source of Being * . . . Beausobre f
makes St. Augustine the Manichean say thus : 'And if by Rasit we
^understand the active Principle of the creation, instead of its beginning,
,in such a case we will clearly perceive that Moses never meant to say
* See Rees's " Encyclopcedia," art. Kabala.
\ " Histor. Manich.," Liv. vi., ch. i., p. 291.
36 ISIS UNVEILED.
that heaven and earth were the first works of God. He only said t
God created heaven and earth through the Principle, who is His Son.
is not the timeht points to, but to the immediate author of the creatu
Angels, according to Augustine, were created before the firmament, f
according to the esoteric interpretation, the heaven and earth were c
ated after that, evolving from the second Principle or the Logos —
creative Deity. " The word principle," says Beausobre, " does i
mean that the heaven and earth were created before anything else, i
to begin with, the angels were created before that ; but that God i
everything through His Wisdom, which is His Verbum, and which I
Christian Bible named the Beginning" thus adopting the exoteric me
ing of the word abandoned to the multitudes. The Kabala — the C
ental as well as the Jewish — shows that a number of emanations (l
Jewish Sephiroth) issued from the First Principle, the chief of whi
was Wisdom. This Wisdom is the Logos of Philo, and Michael, t
chief of the Gnostic Eons ; it is the Ormazd of the Persians ; Minen
goddess of wisdom, of the Greeks, who emanated from the head
Jupiter ; and the second Person of the Christian Trinity. The eai
Fathers of the Church had not much to exert their imagination ; tli
found a ready-made doctrine that had existed in every theogony for thi
sands of years before the Christian era. Their trinity is but the trio
Sephiroth, the first three kabalistic lights of which Moses Nachmanic
says, that " they have never been seen by any one ; there is not any def(
in them, nor any disunion." The first eternal number is the Father,
the Chaldean primeval, invisible, and incomprehensible chaos, out
which proceeded the Intelligible one. The Egyptian Phtah, or "t
Principle of Light — not the, light itself, and the Principle of Li
though himself no life." The Wisdom by which the Father created ti
heavens is the Son, or the kabalistic androgynous Adam Kadmo
The Son is at once the male Ra, or Light of Wisdom, Prudence or Int
ligcnce, Sephira, the female part of Himself ; while from this dual beii
proceeds ;he third emanation, the, Binah or Reason, the second Intel
gence — the Holy Ghost of the Christians. Therefore, strictly speakit
there is a Tetraktis or quaternary, consisting of the Unintelligit
First monad, and its triple emanation, which properly constitute o
Trinity.
How then avoid perceiving at once, that had not the Christians pi
posely disfigured in their interpretation and translation the Mosaic Gena
to fit their own views, their religion, with its present dogmas, would ha'
been impossible ? The word Rasit, once taught in its new sense of tl
Principle and not the Beginning, and the anathematized doctrine (
emanations accepted, the position of the second trinitarian personal
THE FIRST EMANATION OF EN-SOPH. 3/
becomes untenable. For, if the angels are the first divine emanations
from the Divine Substance, and were in existence before the Second
Principle, then the anthropomorphized Son is at best an emanation like
themselves, and cannot be God hypostatically any more than our visible
works are ourselves. That these metaphysical subtleties never entered
into tlie head of the honest-minded, sincere Paul, is evident ; as it is fur-
thermore evident, that like all learned Jews he was well acquainted with
the doctrine of emanations and never thought of corrupting it. How
can any one imagine that Paul identified the Son with the Father, when
he tells us that God made Jesus " a little lower than the angels "
{Hebrews ii. 9), and a little higher than Moses ! " For this man was
counted worthy of more glory than Moses" {Hebrews iii. 3). Of what-
ever, or how many forgeries, interlined later in the Acts, the Fathers are
guilty we know not ; btlt that Paul never considered Christ more than
a man " full of the Spirit of God " is but too evident : " In the arche
was the Logos, and the Logos was adnate to the Theos."
Wisdom, the first emanation of En-Soph ; the Protogonos, the Hy-
postasis ; the Adam Kadmon of the kabalist, the Brahma of the Hindu ;
the Logos of Plato, and the "Beginning" of St. John — is the Rasit —
n-csn, of the Book of Genesis. If rightly interpreted it overturns, as we
have remarked, the whole elaborate system of Christian theology, for
it proves that behind the creative Deity, there was a higher god ; a
planner, an architect ; and that the former was but His executive agent
— a simple power !
They persecuted the Gnostics, murdered the philosophers, and burned
the kabalists and the masons ; and when the day of the great reckoning
arrives, and the light shines in darkness, what will they have to offer in
the place of the departed, expired religion ? What will they answer,
these pretended monotheists, these worshippers and /j^«^i!'- servants of
the one living God, to their Creator ? How will they account for this
long persecution of them who were the true followers of the grand
Megalistor, the supreme great master of the Rosicrucians, the first
of masons. " For he is the Builder and Architect of the Teniple of the
universe ; He is the Verbum Sapienti." *
" Every one knows," wrote the great Manichean of the third century,
.. Fauste, " that the Evangeliums were written neither by Jesus Christ,
• " The altogether mystical coloring of Christianity harmonized with the Essene
rules of life and opinions, and it is not improbable that Jesus and John the Baptist
were initiated into the Essene Mysteries, to which Christianity may be indebted for
many a form of expression ; as indeed the community of Therapeuts!, an offspring of
, the Essene order, soon belonged wholly to Christianity " ("Yost," i., 411 — quoted by
the author of " Sod, the Son of the Man ").
38 ISIS UNVEILED.
nor his apostles, but long after their time by some unknown persons,
who, judging well that they would hardly be beHeved when telhng of
things they had not seen themselves, headed their narratives with the
names of the apostles or of disciples contemporaneous with the latter."
Commenting upon the subject, A. Franck, the learned Hebrew
scholar of the Institute and translator of the Kabala, expresses the same
idea. " Are we not authorized," he asks, " to view the Kabala as a
precious remnant of rehgious philosophy of the Orient, which, trans-
ported into Alexandria, got mixed to the doctrine of Plato, and under the
usurped name of Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop of Athens, converted
and consecrated by St. Paul, was thus enabled to penetrate into the
mysticism of the mediceval ages ? " *
Says Jacolliot : " What is then this religious philosophy of the Orient,
which has penetrated into the mystic symbolism of Christianity ? We
answer : This philosophy, the traces of which we find among the Ma-
gians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, the Hebrew kabalists and the Chris-
tians, is none other than that of the Hindu Brahraans, the sectarians of
the pitris, or the spirits of the invisible worlds which surround us." f
But if the Gnostics were destroyed, the Gnosis, based on the secret
science of sciences, still lives. It is the earth which helps the woman,
and which is destined to open her mouth to swallow up mediaeval Chris-
tianity, the usurper and assassin of the great master's doctrine. The
ancient Kabala, the Gnosis, or traditional secret knowledge, was never
without its representatives in any age or country. The trinities of initiates,
whether passed into history or concealed under the impenetrable veil of
mystery, are preserved and impressed throughout the ages. They are
known as Moses, Aholiab, and Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur,
as Plato, Philo, and Pythagoras, etc. At the Transfiguration we see them
as Jesus, Moses, and Elias, the three Trismegisti ; and three kabalists,
Peter, James, and John — whose revelation is the key to all wisdom. We
found them in the twilight of Jewish history as Zoroaster, Abraham, and
Terah, and later as Henoch, Ezekiel, and Daniel.
Who, of those who ever studied the ancient philosophies, who under-
stand intuitionally the grandeur of their conceptions, the boundless subli-
mity of their views of the Unknown Deity, can hesitate for a moment to
give the preference to their doctrines over the incomprehensible dog-
matic and contradictory theology of the hundreds of Christian sects?
Who that ever read Plato and fathomed his To 'Ov, " whom no person lias
seen except the Son," can doubt that Jesus was a disciple of the same
* A. Franck: "Die Kabbala."
f " Le Spiritisme dans le Monde."
PLATO'S PRUDENT RESERVE. 39
secret doctrine which had instructed the great philosopher ? For, as we
have shown before now, Plato never claimed to be the inventor of all
tliat he wrote, but gave credit for it to Pythagoras, who, ia his turn,
pointed to the remote East as the source whence he derived his informa-
tion and his philosophy. Colebrooke shows that Plato confesses it in his
epistles, and says that he has taken his teachings from ancient and sacred
doctrines ! * Moreover, it is undeniable that the theologies of all the
great nations dovetail together and show that each is a part of " one
stupendous whole." Like the rest of the initiates we see Plato taking
great pains to conceal the true meaning of his allegories. Every time
the subject touches the greater secrets of the Oriental Kabala, secret of
the true cosmogony of the universe and of the ideal, preexisting world,
Plato shrouds his philosophy in the profoundest darkness. His Timaus
is so confused that no one but an initiate can understand the secret
meaning. And Mosheim thinks that Philo has filled his works with pas-
sages directly contradicting each other for the sole purpose of concealing
the true doctrine. For once we see a critic on the right track.
And this very trinitarian idea, as well as the so bitterly denounced
doctrine of emanations, whence their remotest origin ? The answer is
easy, and every proof is now at hand. In the sublime and profoundest
of all philosophies, that of the universal " Wisdom-Religion," the first
traces of which, historical research now finds in the old pre-Vedic
religion of India. As the much-abused JacoUiot well remarks, " It is not
in the religious works of antiquity, such as the Vedas, the Zend Avesta,
the Bible, that we have to search for the exact expression of the enno-
bling and sublime beliefs of those epochs." f
" The holy primitive syllable, composed of the three letters
A — U — M., in which is contained the Vedic Trimurti (Trinity), must
be kept secret, like another triple Veda," says Manu, in book xi., sloka
265.
Swayambhouva is the unrevealed Deity ; it is the Being existent
through and of itself; he is the central and immortal germ of all that
exists in the universe. Three trinities emanate and are confounded in
him, forming a Supreme unity. These trinities, or the triple Trijnurti,
are : the Nara, Nari, and Viradyi — the initial triad ; the Agni, Vaya, and
Sourya — the manifested tT\3.A; Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the creative triad.
Each of these triads becomes less metaphysical and more adapted to
the vulgar intelligence as it descends. Thus the last becomes but the
symbol in its concrete expression ; the necessarianism of a purely meta-
• " Asiat. Trans.," i. , p. 579.
f Louis JacoUiot : " The Initiates of the Ancient Temples."
40 ISIS UNVEILED.
physical conception. Together with Swayambhouva, they are the ten
Sephiroth of the Hebrew kabaHsts, the ten Hindu Prajapatis— the
En-Soph of the former, answering to the great Unknown, expressed by
the mystic A U M of the latter.
Says Franck, the translator of the Kabala :
" The ten Sephiroth are divided into iAree classes, each of them
presenting to us the divinity under a different aspect, the whole still
remaining an indivisible Tri7iity,
"The first three Sephiroth are purely intellectual in metaphysics,
they express the absolute identity of existence and thought, and form
what the modern kabalists called the intelligible world — which is the
first manifestation of God.
" The three that follow, make us conceive God in one of their
aspects, as the identity of goodness and wisdom ; in the other they show
to us, in the Supreme good, the origin of beauty and magnificence (in
the creation). Therefore, they are named the virtues, or the sensible
■world.
" Finally, we learn, by the last three Sephiroth, that the Universal
Providence, that the Supreme artist is also absolute Force, the all-
powerful cause, and that, at the same time, this cause is the generative
element of all that is. It is these last Sephiroth that constitute the
natural world, or nature in its essence and in its active principle.
Naiura naturans." *
This kabalistic conception is thus proved identical with that of the
Hindu philosophy. "Whoever reads Plato and his Dialogue Timasus,
will find these ideas as faithfully re-echoed by the Greek philosopher,
Moreover, the injunction of secrecy was as strict with the kabaHsts, as
with the initiates of the Adyta and the Hindu Yogis.
" Close thy mouth, lest thou shouldst speak of this (the mystery),
and thy heart, lest thou shouldst think aloud ; and if thy heart has es-
caped thee, bring it back to its place, for such is the object of our alli-
ance " {Sepher Jezireh, Book of Creation).
" This is a secret which gives death : close thy mouth lest thou
shouldst reveal to the vulgar ; compress thy brain lest something should
escape from it and fall outside " (Agrouchada-Parikshai).
Truly the fate of many a future generation hung on a gossamer thread,
in the days of the third and fourth centuries. Had not the Emperor
sent in 389 to Alexandria a rescript — which was forced from him by the
Christians — for the destruction of every idol, our own century would
never have had a Christian mythological Pantheon of its own. Never
* Franck : "Die Kabbala."
MARY-VIRGIN ONLY ISIS RECHRISTENED. 41
did the Neo-platonic school reach such a height of philosophy as when
nearest its end. Uniting the mystic theosophy of old Egypt with the
refined philosophy of the Greeks ; nearer to the ancient Mysteries of
Thebes and Memphis than they had been for centuries ; versed in the
science of soothsaying and divination, as in the art of the Therapeutists ;
friendly with the acutest men of the Jewish nation, who were deeply
imbued with the Zoroastrian ideas, the Neo-platonists tended to amal-
gamate the old wisdom of the Oriental Kabala with the more refined
conceptions of the Occidental Theosophists. Notwithstanding the
treason of the Christians, who saw fit, for political reasons, after the days
of Constantine, to repudiate their tutors, the influence of the new
Platonic philosophy is conspicuous in the subsequent adoption of
dogmas, the origin of which can be traced but too easily to that remark-
able school. Though mutilated and disfigured, they still preserve a
strong family likeness, which nothing can obliterate.
But, if the knowledge of the occult powers of nature opens the
spiritual sight of man, enlarges his intellectual faculties, and leads him
unemngly to a profounder veneration for the Creator, on the other hand
ignorance, dogmatic narrow-mindedness, and a childish fear of looking to
the bottom of things, invariably leads to fetish-worship and superstition.
When Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, had openly embraced the
cause of Isis, the Egyptian goddess, and had anthropomorphized her into
!Mary, the mother of God ; and the trinitarian controversy had taken
place ; from that moment the Egyptian doctrine of the emanation of the
creative God out of Emepht began to be tortured in a thousand ways,
until the Councils had agreed upon the adoption of it as it now stands —
the disfigured Ternary of the kabalistic Solomon and Philo ! But as
its origin was yet too evident, the Word was no longer called the
"Heavenly man," the primal Adaxn Kadmon, but became the Logos —
Christ, and was made as old as the " Ancient of the Ancient," his
father. The concealed WISDOM became identical with its emanation,
the Divine Thought, and made to be regarded coequal and coeternal
with its first manifestation.
If we now stop to consider another of the fundamental dogmas of
Christianity, the doctrine of atonement, we may trace it as easily back to
heathendom. This corner-stone of a Church which had believed herself
built on a firm rock for long centuries, is now excavated by science and
proved to come from the Gnostics. Professor Draper shows it as hardly
known in the days of TertuUian, and as having "originated among the
Gnostic heretics." * We will not permit ourselves to contradict such a
* See " Conflict between Religion and Science," p. 224.
42 ISIS UNVEILED.
learned authority, farther than to state that it originated among them
no more than their "anointed" Christos and Sophia. The former
they modelled on the original of the " King Messiah," the male prmci-
ple of wisdom, and the latter on the third Sephiroth, from the Chaldean
Kabala,* and even from the Hindu Brahma and Sara-asvati, f and the
Pagan Dionysus and Demeter. And here we are on firm ground, if it
were only because it is now proved that the New Testament never
appeared in its complete form, such as we find it now, till 300 years
after the period of apostles, \ and the Sohar and other kabalistic books
are found to belong to the first century before our era, if not to be far
older still.
The Gnostics entertained many of the Essenean ideas; and the
Essenes had their "greater" and "minor" Mysteries at least two centu-
ries before our era. They were the Isarim or Initiates, the descendants
of the Egyptian hierophants, in whose country they had been settled for
several centuries before they were converted to Buddhistic monasticism by
the missionaries of King Asoka, and amalgamated later with the earhest
Christians ; and they existed, probably, before the old Egyptian temples
were desecrated and ruined in the incessant invasions of Persians, Greeks,
and other conquering hordes. The hierophants had their atonement
enacted in the Mystery of Initiation ages before the Gnostics, or even
the Essenes, had appeared. It was known among hierophants as the Bap-
tism OF Blood, and was considered not as an atonement for the " fall of
man " in Eden, but simply as an expiation for the past, present, and future
sins of ignorant but nevertheless polluted mankind. The hierophant
had the option of either offering his pure and sinless life as a sacrifice for
his race to the gods whom he hoped to rejoin, or an animal victim. The
former depended entirely on their own will. At the last moment of the
solemn "new birth," the initiator passed "the word" to the initiated, and
immediately after that the latter had a weapon placed in his right hand,
and was ordered to strike. § This is the true origin of the Christian dogma
of atonement.
* See "Soliar;" " Kab. Den.;" "The Book of Mystery," the oldest book
of the kabalists; and Milman : "History of Christianity," pp. 212, 213-215.
f Milman : " History of Christianity," p. 2S0. The Kurios and Kora are men-
tioned repeatedly in " Justin Martyr." See p. 97.
:j; .See Okhausen : " Biblischer Commentar iiber sammtliche Schriften des Neuen
Testaments," ii.
§ There is a wide-spread superstition ( ? ), especially among the Slavonians and Rus-
sians, that the magician or wizard cannot die before he has passed the "word" to a
successor. So deeply is it rooted among the popular beliefs, that we do not imagine
there is a person in Russia who has not heard of it. It is but too easy to trace the
origin of this superstition to the old Mysteries wliich had been for ages spread all over
THE sorcerer's TERRIFYING DEATH-BED. 43
Verily the " Christs " of the pre-Christian ages were many. But they
died unknown to the world, and disappeared as silently and as mysteri-
ously from the sight of man as Mos-es from the top of Pisgab, the moun-
tain of Nebo (oracular wisdom), after he had laid his hands upon Joshua,
who thus became "full of the spirit of wisdom "(z.(?., initiated).
Nor does the Mystery of the Eucharist pertain to Christians alone.
Godfrey Higgins proves that it was instituted many hundreds of years
before the " Paschal Supper," and says that " the sacrifice of bread and
the globe. The ancient Variago-Rouss had his Mysteries in the North as well as in
the South of Russia; and there are many relics of the by-gone faith scattered in the
lands watered by the sacred Dnieper, the baptismal Jordan of all Russia. No Zn&char
(the knowing one) or Koldoun (sorcerer), male or female, can die in fact before he has
passed the mysterious word to some one. The popular belief is that unless he does that
he will linger and suffer for weeks and months, and were he even finally to get liberated,
it would be only to wander on earth, unable to quit its region unless he finds a successor
even after death. How far the belief may be verified by others, we do not know, but
we have seen a case which, for its tragical and mysterious dhtoument, deserves to be given
here as an illustration of the subject in hand. An old man, of over one hundred years
of age, a peasant-serf in the government of S , having a wide reputation as a sorcerer
and healer, was said to be dying for several days, and still unable to die. The report
spread like lightning, and the poor old fellow was shunned by even the members of his
own family, as the latter were afraid of receiving the unwelcome inheritance. At last
the public rumor in the village was that he had sent a message to a colleague less versed
than himself in the art, and who, although he lived in a distant district, was nevertheless
coming at the call, and would be on hand early on the following morning. There was
at that time on a visit to the proprietor of the village a young physician who, belonging
to the famous school of Nihilism of that day, laughed outrageously at the idea. The
master of the house, being a very pious man, and but half inclined to make so cheap
of the ** superstition,'* smiled — as the saying goes — but with one corner of his mouth.
Meanwhile the young skeptic, to gratify his curiosity, had made a visit to the dying
man, had found that he could not live twenty-four hours longer, and, determined to
prove the absurdity of the " superstition," had taken means to detain the coming "suc-
cessor " at a neighboring village.
Early in the morning a company of four persons, comprising the physician, the mas-
ter of the place, his daughter, and the writer of the present lines, went to the hut in
which was to be achieved the triumph of skepticism. The dying man was expecting his
liberator every moment, and his agony at the delay became extreme. We tried to per-
suade the physician to humor the patient, were it for humanity's sake. He only laughed.
Getting hold with one hand of the old wizard's pulse, he took out his watch with the
other, and remarking in French that all would be over in a few moments, remained ab-
sorbed in his professional experiment. The scene was solemn and appalling. Suddenly
the door opened, and a young boy entered with the intelligence, addressed to the doctor,
that the ioum was lying dead drunk at a neighboring village, and, according to his
orders, could not be with "grandfather" till the next day. The young doctor felt
confused, and was just going to address the old man, when, as quick as lightn-ng, the
Znachar snatched his hand from his grasp and raised himself in bed. His deep-sunken
eyes flashed ; his yellow-white beard and hair streaming round his livid face made him a
44 ISIS UNVEILED.
wine was common to many ancient nations."* Cicero mentions it m his
works, and wonders at the strangeness of the rite. There had been an
esoteric meaning attached to it from the first estabUshment of the Mys-
teries, and the Eucharistia is one of the oldest rites of antiquity. With
the hierophants it had nearly the same significance as with the Chris-
tians. Ceres was bread, and Bacchus was wine ; the former meaning re-
generation of life from the seed, and the latter- — the grape — the emblem
of wisdom and knowledge ; the accumulation of the spirit of things, and
the fermentation and subsequent strength of that esoteric knowledge
being justly symbolized by wine. The mystery related to the drama of
Eden ; it is said to have been first taught by Janus, who was also the first
to introduce in the temples the sacrifices of " bread " and " wine " in com-
memoration of the "fall into generation" as the symbol of the "seed."
" I am the vine, and my Father is the husbandman," says Jesus, alluding
to the secret knowledge that could be imparted by him. " I will drink
no more of the fruit of the vine until that day that I drink it new in the
kingdom of God."
The festival of the Eleusinian Mysteries began in the month of Boe-
dromion, which corresponds with the month of September, the time of
grape-gathering, and lasted from the 15th to the 22d of the month, seven
days.f The Hebrew festival of the Eeast of Tabernacles began on the
15th and ended on the 22d of the month of Ethanim, which Dunlap
shows as derived, from Adonim, Adonia, Attenim, Ethanim ; \ and this
feast is named in Exodus (xxiii. 16) the feast of ingatherings. "All the
men of Israel assembled unto King Solomon at the feast in the month
Ethanim, which is the seventh." §
Plutarch thinks the feast of the booths to be the Bacchic rites, not
dreadful sight. One instant more, and his long, sinewy arms were clasped romid the
physician's neck, as with a supernatural force he drew the doctor's head closer and closer
to his own face, where he held liim as in a vise, while whisperhig words inaudible to us
in his ear. The skeptic struggled to free himself, but before he had lime to make one
effective motion the work had evidently been done ; the hands relaxed their grasp, and
the old sorcerer fell on his back — a corpse ! A strange and ghostly smile had settled on
the stony lips — a smile of fiendish triumph and satisfied revenge ; but the doctor looked
paler and more ghastly than the dead man himself. He stared round with an expression
of terror difficult to describe, and without answering our inquiries ruslied out wildly from
the hut, in the direction of the woods. Messengers were sent after him, but he was
nowhere to be found. About sunset a report was heard in the forest. An hour later
his body was brought home, with a bullet through his head, for the skeptic had blown
out his brains !
What made him commit suicide ? What magic spell of sorcery had the " word " of
the dying wizard left on his mind ? Who can tell ?
* " Anacalypsis ; " also Tertullian. \ " Anthon," art. Eleusinia.
\ Dunlap: " Musah, His Mysteries," p. 71. § i Kings, viil. 2.
THE HEBREW KADESHIM. 45
the Eleusinian. Thus " Bacchus was directly called upon," he says.
The Sabazian worship was Sabbatic ; the names Evius, pr Hevius, and
Luaios are identical with Hivite and Levite. The French name Louis
is the Hebrew Levi ; lacchus again is lao or Jehovah ; and Baal or Adon,
like Bacchus, was a phallic god. "Who shall ascend into the hill (the
high place) of the Lord ? " asks the holy king David, " who shall stand in
the place of his Kadushii vinp" ? {^Psalms xxiv. 3). Kadesh may mean in
one sense to devote, hallow, sanctify, and even to initiate or to set apart ;
but it also means the ministers of lascivious rites (the Venus-worship)
and the true interpretation of the word Kadesh is bluntly rendered in
Deuteronomy xxiii. 17 ; Hosea iv. 14 ; and Genesis xxxviii., from verses
15 to 22. The "holy" Kadeshuth of the Bible were identical as to the
duties of their office with the Nautch-girls of the later Hindu pagodas.
The Hebrew Kadeshim or galli lived " by the house of the Lord, where
the women wove hangings for the gi'ove," or bust of Venus-Astartfe, says
verse the seventh in the twenty-third chapter of 2 Kings.
The dance performed by David round the ark was the "circle-dance"
said to have been prescribed by the Amazons for the Mysteries. Such
was the dance of the daughters of Shiloh [Judges xxi. 21, 23 et passim),
and the leaping of the prophets of Baal (i Kings xviii. 26). It was simply
a characteristic of the Sabean worship, for it denoted the motion of the
planets round the sun. That the dance was a Bacchic frenzy is appar-
ent. Sistra were used on the occasion, and the taunt of Michael and the
king's reply are very expressive. " The king of Israel uncovered him-
self before his maid-servants as one of the vain (or debauched) fellows
shamelessly uncovereth himself." And he retorts : " I will play (act
wantonly) before runi, and I will be yet more vile than this, and I will
be base in my own sight." When we remember that David had so-
journed among the Tyrians and Philistines, where their rites were com-
mon ; and that indeed he had conquered that land away from the house
of Saul, by the aid of mercenaries from their country, the countenancing
and even, perhaps, the introduction of such a Pagan-like worship by the
weak " psalmist" seems very natural. David knew nothing of Moses, it
seems, and if he introduced the Jehovah-worship it was not in its mono-
theistic character, but simply as that of one of the many gods of the
neighboring nations — a tutelary deity to whom he had given the prefer-
ence, and chosen among " all other gods."
Following the Christian dogmas seriatim, if we concentrate our atten-
tion upon one which provoked the fiercest battles until its recognition,
that of the Trinity, what do we find ? We meet it, as we have shown,
northeast of the Indus ; and tracing it to Asia Minor and Europe, recog-
nize it among every people who had anything like an established re-
46 ISIS UNVEILED.
ligion. It was taught in the oldest Chaldean, Egyptian, and Mithraitic
schools. The Chaldean Sun-god, Mithra, was called " Triple," and the
trinitarian idea of the Chaldeans was a doctrine of the Akkadians, who,
themselves, belonged to a race which was the first to conceive a meta-
physical trinity. The Chaldeans are a tribe of the Akkadians, according
toRawlinson, who lived in Babylonia from the earliest times. They were
Turanians, according to others, and instructed the Babylonians into the
first notions of religion. But these same Akkadians, who were they ?
Those scientists who would ascribe to them a Turanian origin, make
of them the inventors of the cuneiform characters ; others call them Su-
merians ; others again, respectively, make their language, of which (for
very good reasons) no traces whatever remain — Kasdean, Chaldaic,
Proto-Chaldean, Kasdo-Scythic, and so on. The only tradition worthy
of credence is that these Akkadians instructed the Babylonians in the
Mysteries, and taught them the sacerdotal or Mysiery-limguSige. These
Akkadians were then simply a tribe of the Hindu-Brahmans, now called
Aryans — their vernacular language, the Sanscrit * of the Vedas ; and the
sacred or Mystery-language, that which, even in our own age, is used by
the Hindu fakirs and initiated Brahmans in their magical evocations, f
It has been, from time immemorial, and still is employed by the initiates
of all countries, and the Thibetan lamas claim that it is in this tongue
that appear the mysterious characters on the leaves and bark of the
sacred Koumboum.
Jacolhot, who took such pains to penetrate the mysteries of the
Brahmanical initiation in translating and commenting upon the Agrou-
chada-Parikshai, confesses the following :
" It is pretended also, without our being able to verify the assertion,
that the magical evocations were pronounced in a particular language,
and that it was forbidden, under pain of death, to translate them into
vulgar dialects. The rare expressions that we have been able to catch
like — L'rhovi, h'hom, sKhrum, sho'rhim, are in fact most curious, and do
not seem to belong to any known idiom." \
Those who have seen a fakir or a lama reciting his mantras and con-
* Let us remember in this connection that Col. Van Kennedy has long ago declared
his opinion that Babylonia was once the seat of the Sanscrit language and of Brahman-
ical influence.
f " ' Tlie Agi-ouchada-Parikshai,' which discloses, to a certain extent, the order of in-
itiation, does not give the formula of evocation," says Jacolliot, and he adds that, accord-
ing to some Brahmans, " these formula were never written, they were and still are im-
parted in a whisper in the ear of the adepts" (" month to ear, and the word at Imo
breath^'' say the Masons). — " Le Spiritisme daiis le Monde," p. loS.
t " Le Spiritisme dans le Monde," p. loS.
IS JACOLLIOT AN UNMITIGATED HUMBUG ? 47
jurations, know that he never pronounces the words audibly when pre-
paring for a phenomenon. His lips move, and none will fver hear the
terrible formula pronounced, except in the interior of the temples, and
then in a cautious whisper. This, then, was the language now respect-
ively baptized by every scientist, and, according to his imaginative and
philological propensities, Kasdeo-Semitic, Scythic, Proto-Chaldean, and
the like.
Scarcely two of even the most learned Sanscrit philologists are agreed
as to the true interpretation of Vedic words. Let one put forth an essay,
a lecture, a treatise, a translation, a dictionary, and straightway all the
others fall to quarrelling with each other and with him as to his sins of
omission and commission. Professor Whitney, greatest of American
Orientalists, says that Professor MUUer's notes on the Rig Veda Sdnhiia
" are far from showing that sound and thoughtful judgment, that modera-
tion and economy which are among the most precious qualities of an
exegete." ProfessoT- Miiller angril}' retorts upon his critics that " not
only is the joy embittered which is the inherent reward of all bona fide
work, but selfishness, malignity, aye, even untruthfubiess, gain the upper
hand, and the healthy growth of science is stunted." He differs "in
many cases from the explanations of Vedic words given by Professor
Roth" in his Sanscrit Dictionary, and Professor Whitney shampooes
both their heads by sa)ring that there are, unquestionably, words and
phrases "as to which both alike will hereafter be set right."
In volume i. of his Chips, Professor Miiller stigmatizes all the Vedas
except the Rik, the Atharva-Veda included, as "theological twaddle,"
while Professor Whitney regards the latter as " the most comprehensive
and valuable of the four collections, next after the Rik." To return to
the case of JacoUiot. Professor Whitney brands him as a "bungler
and a humbug," and, as we remarked above, this is the very general
verdict. But when the Bible dans V Inde appeared, the Societe Acade-
mique de Saint Quentin requested M. Textor de Ravisi, a learned In-
dianist, ten years Governor of Karikal, India, to report upon its merits.
He was an ardent Catholic, and bitterly opposed JacoUiot's conclusions
where they discredited the Mosaic and Catholic revelations ; but he was
forced to say : "Written with good faith, in an easy, vigorous, and pas-
sionate style, of an easy and varied argumentation, the work of M. Jac-
oUiot is of absorbing interest ... a learned work on known facts and
with familiar arguments."
Enough. Let Jacolliot have the benefit of the doubt when such
very imposing authorities are doing their best to show up each other as
incompetents and literary journeymen. We quite agree with Professor
Whitney that " the truism, that [for European critics?] it is far easier to
48 ISIS UNVEILED.
pull to pieces than to build up, is nowhere truer than in matters affecting
the archseology and history of India." *
Babylonia happened to be situated on the way of the great stream of
the earliest Hindu emigration, and the Babylonians were one of the first
peoples benefited thereby, f These Khaldi were the worshippers of the
Moon-god, Deus Lunus, from which fact we may infer that the Akkadians
— if such must be their name — belonged to the race of the Kings of the
Moon, whom tradition shows as having reigned in Pruyay — now Allaha-
bad. With them the trinity of Deus I.unus was manifested in the three
lunar phases, completing the quaternary with the fourth, and typifying
the death of the Moon-god in its gradual waning and final disappearance.
This death was allegorized by them, and attributed to the triumph of the
genius of evil over the light-giving deity ; as the later nations allegorized
the death of their Sun-gods, Osiris and Apollo, at the hands of Typhon
and the great Dragon Python, when the sun entered the winter solstice.
Babel, Arach, and Akkad are names of the sun. The Zoroastrian
Oracles are full and explicit upon the subject of the Divine Triad. "A
triad of Deity shines forth throughout the whole world, of which a Monad
is the head," admits the Reverend Dr. Maurice.
" For from this Triad, in the bosoms, are all things governed," says
a Chaldean oracle. The Phos, Pur, and Phlox, of Sanchoniathon, \ are
Light, Fire, and Flame, three manifestations of the Sun who is one.
Bel-Saturn, Jupiter-Bel, and Bel or Baal-Chom are the Chaldean trinity ;§
" The Babylonian Bel was regarded in the Triune aspect of Belitan,
Zeus-Belus (the mediator) and Baal-Chom who is Apollo Chomseus.
This was the Triune aspect of the ' Highest God,' who is, according to
Berosus, either El (the Hebrew), Bel, Belitan, Mithra, or Zervana, and
has the name Trarrip, "the Father." || The Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva,^
corresponding to Power, Wisdom, and Justice, which answer in their turn
* W. D. Whitney: " Oriental and Linguistic Studies, Tlie Veda, etc."
\ Jacolliot seems to have very logically demonstrated the absurd contradictions of
some philologists, anthropologists, and Orientalists, in regard to their Akkado
and Semito mania. " There is not, perhaps, much of good faith in their negations,"
he writes. "Tlie scientists who invent Turanian peoples know very well that in Manu
alone, there is more of veritable science and philosophy than in all that this pretended
Semitism has hitherto furnished us with ; but they are the slaves of a path which some
of them are following the last fifteen, twenty, or even thirty years. . . . We expect,
therefore, nothing of the present. India will owe its reconstitution to the scientists of
the next generation " (" Le Gen^se de I'HumanitS," pp. 60-61).
:j;Cory; "Anc. Frag." § Movers :" Phoinizer," 263.
II Dunlap : " Sp. Hist, of Man," p. 2S1.
1 Siva is not a god of the Vedas, strictly speaking. When the Vedas were written,
he held the rank of Maha-Deva or Bel among the gods of aboriginal India.
THE TRINITIES OF VARIOUS RELIGIONS. 49
to Spirit, Matter, Time, and the Past, Present, and Future, can he found
in the temple of Gharipuri ; thousands of dogmatic Brahmans worship
these attributes of the Vedic Deity, while the severe monks and nuns
of Buddhistic Thibet recognize but the sacred trinity of the three cardi-
nal virtues : Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, professed by the Christians,
practiced by the Buddhists and some Hindus alone.
The Persian triplicate Deity also consists of three persons, Ormazd,
Mithra, and Ahriman. " That is that principle," says Porphyry,* " which
the author of the Chaldaic Summary saith, ' They conceive there is one
principle of all things, and declare that is one and good.' " The Chinese
idol Sanpao, consists of three equal in all respects; f and the Peruvians
" supposed their Tanga-tanga to be one in three, and three in one," says
Faber.J The Egyptians have their Emepht, Eicton, and Phta ; and the
triple god seated on the Lotos can be seen in the St. Petersburg Museum,
on a medal of the Northern Tartars.
Among the Church dogmas which have most seriously suffered of
late at the hands of the Orientalists, the last in question stands con-
spicuous. The reputation of each of the three personages of the an-
thropomorphic godhead as an original revelation to the Christians
through Divine will, has been badly compromised by inquiry into its
predecessors and origin. Orientalists have published more about the
similarity between Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Christianity than was
strictly agreeable to the Vatican. Draper's assertion that " Paganism
was modified by Christianity, Christianity by Paganisra,"§ is being daily
verified. " Olympus was restored but the divinities passed under other
names," he says, treating of the Constantine period. "The more pow-
erful provinces insisted on the adoption of their time-honored concep-
tions. Views of the trinity in accordance with the Egyptian traditions
were established. Not only was the adoration of Isis under a new name
restored, but .even her image, standing on the crescent moon, reappeared.
The well-known effigy of that goddess with the infant Horus in her arms
has descended to our days, in the beautiful artistic creations of the
Madonna and child."
But a still earlier origin than the Egyptian and Chaldean can be
assigned to the Virgin " Mother of God," Queen of Heaven. Though
* " De Antro Nympharum." -j- " Navarette," book ii., c. x.
X " On the Origin of Heathen Idolatry."
§ Isis and Osiris are said, in the Egyptian sacred books, to have appeared {i.^., been
worshipped), on earth, later than Thot, the Jirst Hermes, called Trismegistus, who
wrote all their sacred books according to the command of God or by "divine revela-
tion." The companion and instructor of Isis and Osiris was Thot, or Hermes II., who
was an incarnation of the celestial Hermes.
4
50 ISIS UNVEILED.
Isis is also by right the Queen of Heaven, and is generally represented
carrying in her hand the Crux Ansata composed of the mundane cross,
and of the Stauros of the Gnostics, she is a great deal younger than the
celestial virgin, Neith. In one of the tombs of the Pharaohs — Rham-
eses, in the valley of Biban-el-M61ouk, in Thebes, Champollion, Junior,
discovered a picture, according to his opinion the most ancient ever yet
found. It represents the heavens symbolized by the figure of a woman
bedecked with stars. The birth of the Sun is figured by the form of a
little child, issuing from the bosom of its " Divine Mother."
In the Book of Hermes, " Pimander " is enunciated in distinct and un-
equivocal sentences, the whole trinitarian dogma accepted by the Chris-
tians. " The light is me," says Pimander, the divine thought. " I
am the nous or intelligence, and I am thy god, and I am far older than
the human principle which escapes from the shadow. I am the germ of
thought, the resplendent word, the son of God. Think that what thus
sees and hears in thee, is the Verbum of the Master, it is the Thought,
which is God the Father. . . . The celestial ocean, the ^ther, which
flows from east to west, is the Breath of the Father, the life-giving
Principle, the holy ghost ! " " For they are not at all separated and
their union is life."
Ancient as may be the origin of Hermes, lost in the unknown days of
Egyptian colonization, there is yet a far older prophecy, directly relating
to the Hindu Christna, according to the Brahmans. It is, to say the
least, strange that the Christians claim to base their religion upon a pro-
phecy of the Bible, which exists nowhere in that book. In what chapter
or verse does Jehovah, the " Lord God," promise Adam and Eve to send
them a Redeemer who will save humanity ? "I will put enmity between
thee and the woman," says the Lord God to the serpent, "and between
thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his
heel."
In these words there is not the slightest allusion to a Redeemer, and
the subtilest of intellects could not extract from them, as they stand in the
third chapter of Genesis, anything like that which the Christians have
contrived to find. On the other hand, in the traditions and Mann, Brahma
promises directly to the first couple to send them a Saviour who will
teach them the way to salvation.
" It is from the lips of a messenger of Brahma, who will be born in
Kuroukshetra, Matsya, and the land of Pantchola, also called Kanya-
Cubja (mountain of the Virgin), that all men on earth will learn their
duty," says Manii (book ii., slokas ig and 20).
The Mexicans call the Father of their Trinity Yzona, the Son Bacab,
and the Holy Ghost Echvah, " and say they received it (the doctrine)
PAGAN RITES AND DOGMAS ADOPTED BY CHRISTIANS. 5 1
from their ancestors." * Among the Semitic nations we can trace the trin-
ity to the prehistorical days of the fabled Sesostris, who is identified by
more than one critic with Nimrod, " the mighty hunter." Manetho makes
the oracle rebuke the king, when the latter asks, "Tell me, O thou
strong in fire, who before me could subjugate all things? and who shall
after me ? " And the oracle saith thus : " First God, then the Word,
and then ' the Spirit.' " f
In the foregoing lies the foundation of the fierce hatred of the Chris-
tians toward the "Pagans" and the theurgists. Too much had been
borrowed ; the ancient religions and the Neo-platonists had been laid by
them under contribution sufficiently to perplex the world for several
thousand years. Had not the ancient creeds been speedily obliterated,
it would have been found impossible to preach the Christian religion as a
New Dispensation, or the direct Revelation from God the Father, through
God the Son, and under the influence of God the Holy Ghost. As a
political exigence the Fathers had — to gratify the wishes of their rich
converts — instituted even the festivals of Pan. They went so far as to
accept the ceremonies hitherto celebrated by the Pagan world in honor
of the God of the gardens, in all their primitive sincerity.\ It was
time to sever the connection. Either the Pagan worship and the Neo-
platonic theurgy, with all ceremonial of magic, must be crushed out for-
ever, or the Christians become Neo-platonists.
The fierce polemics and single-handed battles between Irenseus and
the Gnostics are too well known to need repetition. They were carried on
for over two centuries after the unscrupulous Bishop of Lyons had uttered
his last religious paradox. Celsus, the Neo-platonist, and a disciple of
the school of Ammonius Saccas, had thrown the Christians into perturba-
tion, and even had arrested for a time the progress of proselytism by suc-
cessfully proving that the original and purer forms of the most important
dogmas of Christianity were to be found only in the teachings of Plato.
Celsus accused them of accepting the worst superstitions of Paganism, and
of interpolating passages from the books of the Sybils, without rightly
understanding their meaning. The accusations were so plausible, and the
facts so patent, that for a long time no Christian writer had ventured to
answer the challenge. Origen, at the fervent request of his friend, Am-
brosius, was the first to take the defense in hand, for, having belonged to
the same Platonic school of Ammonius, he was considered the most com-
petent man to refute the well-founded charges. But his eloquence failed,
and the only remedy that could be found was to destroy the writings of
* Lord Kingsborough : "Ant. Mex,," p. 165.
f " Ap. Malal.," lib. i., cap. iv. % Payne Knight : "Phallic Worship."
52 ISIS UNVEILED.
Celsus themselves. * This could be achieved only in the fifth century,
when copies had been taken from this work, and many were those who
had read and studied them. If no copy of it has descended to our pres-
ent generation of scientists, it is not because there is none extant at
present, but for the simple reason that the monks of a certain Oriental
church on Mount Athos will neither show nor confess they have one in
their possession. f Perhaps they do not even know themselves the value
of the contents of their manuscripts, on account of their great ignorance.
The dispersion of the Eclectic school had become the fondest hope
of the Christians. It had been looked for and contemplated with intense
anxiety. It was finally achieved. The members were scattered by the
* The Celsus above mentioned, who lived between the second and third centuries,
is not Celsus the Epicurean. The latter wrote several works against Magic, and lived
earlier, during the reign of Hadrian,
f We have the facts from a trustworthy witness, having no interest to invent such a
story. Having injured his leg in a fall from the steamer into the boat in which he was
to land at the Mount, he was taken care of by these monks, and during his convalescence,
through gifts of money and presents, became their greitest friend, and finally won their
entire confidence. Having asked for the Joan of some books, he was taken by the Supe-
rior to a large cellar in which they keep their sacred vessels and other property. Opening
a great trunk, full of old musty manuscripts and rolls, he was invited by the Superior
to " amuse himself." The gentleman was a scholar, and well versed in Greek and Latin
text. " I was amazed," he says, in a private letter, " and had my breath taken away,
on finding among these old parchments, so unceremoniously treated, some of the most
valuable relics of the first centuries, hitherto believed to have been lost." Among others
he found a half-destroyed manuscript, which he is perfectly sure must be a copy of the
" True Doctrine," the Aoyo; aXt]Qr\% of Celsus, out of which Origen quoted whole pages.
The traveller took as many notes as he could on that day, but when he came to offer to the
Superior to purchase some of these writings he found, to his gi-eat surprise, that no amount
of money would tempt the monks. They did not know what the manuscripts contained,
nor "did they care," they said. But the "heap of writing," they added, was transmitted
to them from one generation to another, and there was a tradition among them that
these papers would one day become the means of crushing the "Great Beast of the
Apocalypse," their hereditary enemy, the Church of Rome. They were constantly
quarrelling and fighting with the Catholic monks, and among the whole "heap" they
knew that there was a "holy" relic which protected them. They did not know which,
and so in their doubt abstained. It appears that the Superior, a shrewd Greek, under-
stood his bevue and repented of his kindness, for first of all he made the traveller give
him his most sacred word of honor, strengthened by an oath he made him take on the
image of the Holy Patroness of the Island, never to betray their secret, and never men-
tion, at least, the name of their convent. And finally, when the anxious student who
had passed a fortnight in reading all sorts of antiquated trash before he happened to
stumble over some precious manuscript, expressed the desire to have the key, to "amuse
himself " with the writings once more, he was very naively informed that the " key had
been lost," and that they did not know where to look for it. And thus he was left to
the few notes he had taken.
A SAINT BUTCHERED, AND BUTCHERS SAINTED. S3
hand of the monsters Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, and his nephew
Cyril — the murderer of the young, the learned, and the innocent Hy-
patia ! *
With the death of the martyred daughter of Theon, the mathematician,
there remained no possibility for the Neo-platonists to continue their
school at Alexandria. During the life-time of the youthful Hypatia her
friendship and influence with Orestes, the governor of the city, had assured
the philosophers security and protection against their murderous enemies.
With her death they had lost their strongest friend. How much she was
revered by all who knew her for her erudition, noble virtues, and charac-
ter, we can infer from the letters addressed to her by Synesius, Bishop of
Ptolemais, fragments of which have reached us. " My heart yearns for
the presence of your divine spirit," he wrote in 413 a. d., "which more
than anything else could alleviate the bitterness of my fortunes." At
another time he says : " Oh, my mother, my sister, my teacher, my ben-
efactor ! My soul is very sad. The recollection of my children I have
lost is killing me. . . . When I have news of you and learn, as I hope,
that you are more fortunate than myself, I am at least only half-unhappy."
What would have been the feelings of this most noble and worthy of
Christian bishops, who had surrendered family and children and happiness
for the faith into which he had been attracted, had a prophetic vision dis-
closed to him that the only friend that had been left to him, his " mother,
sister, benefactor," would soon become an unrecognizable mass of flesh
and blood, pounded to jelly under the blows of the club of Peter the
Reader — that her youthful, innocent body would be cut to pieces, " the
flesh scraped from the bones," by oyster-shells and the rest of her cast
into the fire, by order of the same Bishop Cyril he knew so well — Cyril,
the CANONIZED Saint ! ! f
There has never been a religion in the annals of the world with such
a bloody record as Christianity. All the rest, including the traditional
fierce fights of the "chosen people" with their next of kin, the idolatrous
tribes of Israel, pale before the murderous fanaticism of the alleged fol-
lowers of Christ ! Even the rapid spread of Mahometanism before the
conquering sword_ of the Islam prophet, is a direct consequence of the
* See the historical romance of Canon Kingsley, "Hypatia," for a highly pictu-
resque account of the tragical fate of this yoimg martyr.
+ We beg the reader to bear in mind that it is the same Cyril who was accused and
proved guilty of having sold the gold and silver ornaments of his church, and spent the
money. He pleaded guilty, but tried to excuse himself on the ground that he had used
the money for the poor, but could not give evidence of it. His duplicity with Arius
and his party is well known. Thus one of the first Christian saints, and the founder
of the Trinity, appears on the pages of history as a murderer and a thief !
54 ISIS UNVEILED.
bloody riots and fights among Christians. It was the intestine war be-
tween the Nestorians and Cyrilians that engendered Islamism ; and it is
in the convent of Bozrah that the prolific seed was first sown by Bahira,
the Nestorian monk. Freely watered by rivers of blood, the tree of
Mecca has grown till we find it in the present century overshadowing
nearly two hundred millions of people. The recent Bulgarian atrocities
are but the natural outgrowth of the triumph of Cyril and the Mario-
laters.
The cruel, crafty politician, the plotting monk, glorified by ecclesias-
tical history with the aureole of a martyred saint. The despoiled philoso-
phers, the Neo-platonists, and the Gnostics, daily anathematized by the
Church all over the world for long and dreary centuries. The curse of
the unconcerned Deity hourly invoked on the magian rites and theurgic
practice, and the Christian clergy themselves using sorcery for ages.
Hypatia, the glorious maiden-philosopher, torn to pieces by the Christian
mob. And such as Catherine de Medici, Lucrezia Borgia, Joanna of
Naples, and the Isabellas of Spain, presented to the world as the faithful
daughters of the Church — some even decorated by the Pope with the
order of the "Immaculate Rose," the highest emblem of womanly purity
and virtue, a symbol sacred to the Virgin-mother of God ! Such are the
examples of human justice ! How far less blasphemous appears a total
rejection of Mary as an immaculate goddess, than an idolatrous worship
of her, accompanied by such practices.
In the next chapter we will present a few illustrations of sorcery, as
practiced under the patronage of the Roman Church.
CHAPTER II.
" They undertake by scales of miles to tell
The bounds, dimensions, and extent of hell ;
*♦**♦*****•
Where bloated souls in smoky durance hung
Like a Westphalia gammon or neat*s tongue.
To be redeemed with masses and a song."
— Oldham ; Satires %iJ>on the Jesuitt.
** York. — But you are more inhuman, more inexorable —
O, ten times more — than tigers of Hyrcania."
— King Henry K/., Part Third, Act i.. Scene iv.
*' War. — And hark ye, Sirs ; because she is a maid
Spare for no faggots, let there be enough ;
Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake."
— King Henry VI. ^ Part First, Act v., Scene iv.
IN that famous work of Bodin, on sorcery,* a frightful story is told
about Catherine of Medicis. The author was a learned pubhcist,
who, during twenty years of his life, collected authentic documents from
the archives of nearly every important city of France, to make up a com-
plete work on sorcery, magic, and the power of various " demons."
To use an expression of Eliphas Levi, his book offers a most remarkable
collection of " bloody and hideous facts; acts of revolting superstition,
arrests, and executions of stupid ferocity." " Burn every body ! " the
Inquisition seemed to say — God will easily sort out His own ! Poor
fools, hysterical women, and idiots were roasted alive, without mercy, for
the crime of " magic." But, " at the same time, how many gieat culprits
escaped this unjust Ind sanguinary justice ! This is what Bodin makes
us fully appreciate."
Catherine, the pious Christian — who has so well deserved in the eyes
of the Church of Christ for the atrocious and never-to-be-forgotten mas-
sacre of St. Bartholomew' — the Queen Catherine, kept in her service an
apostate Jacobin priest. Well versed in the " black art," so fully pat-
ronized by the Medici family, he had won the gratitude and protection
of his pious mistress, by his unparalleled skill in killing people at a dis-
tance, by torturing with various incantations their wax simulacra. The
process has been described over and over again, and we scarcely need
repeat it.
* "La Demonomanie, ou traite des Sorciers." Paris, 1587.
56 ISIS UNVEILED.
Charles was lying sick of an incurable disease. The queen-mother,
who had everything to lose in case of his death, resorted to necromancy,
and consulted the oracle of the " bleeding head." This infernal opera-
tion required the decapitation of a child who must be possessed of great
beauty and purity. He had been prepared in secret for his first commu-
nion, by the chaplam of the palace, who was apprised of the plot, and at
midnight of the appointed day, in the chamber of the sick man, and in
presence only of Catherine and a few of her confederates, the " devil's
mass " was celebrated. Let us give the rest of the story as we find it in
one of Levi's works : " At this mass, celebrated before the image of the
demon, having under his feet a reversed cross, the sorcerer consecrated
two wafers, one black and one white. The white was given to the child,
whom they brought clothed as for baptism, and who was murdered upon
the very steps of the altar, immediately after his communion. His head,
separated from the trunk by a single blow, was placed, all palpitating,
upon the great black wafer which covered the bottom of the paten, then
placed upon a table where some mysterious lamps were burning. The
exorcism then began, and the demon was charged to pronounce an ora-
cle, and reply by the mouth of this head to a secret question that the
king dared not speak aloud, and that had been confided to no one. Then
a feeble voice, a strange voice, which had nothing of human character
about it, made itself audible in this poor little martyr's head." The sor-
cery availed nothing ; the king died, and — Catherine remained the faith-
ful daughter of Rome !
How strange, that des Mousseaux, whx) makes such free use of Bodin's
materials to construct his formidable indictment against Spiritualists and
other sorcerers, should have overlooked this interesting episode !
It is a well-attested fact that Pope Sylvester II. was publicly accused
by Cardinal Benno with being a sorcerer and an enchanter. The brazen
" oracular head " made by his Holiness was of the same kind as the one
fabricated by Albertus Magnus. The latter was smashed to pieces by
Thomas Aquinas, not because it was the work of or inhabited by a
"demon," but because the spook who was fixed inside, by mesmeric
power, talked incessantly, and his verbiage prevented the eloquent saint
from working out his mathematical problems. These heads and other
talking statues, trophies of the magical skill of monks and bishops, were
fac-similes of the " animated" gods of the ancient temples. The accu-
sation against the Pope was proved at the time. It was also demonstrated
that he was constantly attended by " demons " or spirits. In the pre-
ceding chapter we have mentioned Benedict IX., John XX., and the
Vlth and Vllth Gregory, who were all known as magicians. The
latter Pope, moreover, was the famous Hildebrand, who was said to have
POPES, BISHOPS, AND PRIESTS AS SORCERERS. S7
been so expert at " shaking lightning out of his sleeve." An expression
which makes the venerable spiritualistic writer, Mr. Howitt, think that
"it was the origin of the celebrated thunder of the Vatican."
The magical achievements of the Bishop of Ratisbon and those of the
"angelic doctor," Thomas Aquinas, are too well known to need repe-
tition ; but we may explain farther how the " illusions " of the former were
produced. If the Catholic bishop was so clever in making people believe
on a bitter winter night that they were enjoying the delights of a splendid
summer day, and cause the icicles hanging from the boughs of the trees
in the garden to seem like so many tropical fruits, the Hindu magicians
also practice such biological powers unto this very day, and claim the
assistance of neither god nor devil. Such " miracles " are all produced
by the same human power that is inherent in every man, if he only
knew how to develop it.
About the time of the Reformation, the study of alchemy and magic
had become so prevalent among the clergy as to produce great scandal.
Cardinal Wolsey was openly accused before the court and the privy-
council of confederacy with a man named Wood, a sorcerer, who said
that " My Lord Cardinale had suche a rynge that what somev ere he askyd
of the Kynges grace that he hadd yt ; " adding that "■Master Cromwell,
when he . . . was servaunt in my lord cardynales housse . . . rede many
hokes and specyally the boke of Salamon . . . and studied mettells and
what vertues they had after the canon of Salamon!^ This case, with seve-
ral others equally curious, is to be found among the Cromwell papers in
the Record Office of the Rolls House.
A priest named William Stapleton was arrested as a conjurer, during
the reign of Henry VIII., and an account of his adventures is still
preserved in the Rolls House records. The Sicilian priest whom
Benvenuto Cellini calls a necromancer, became famous through his
successful conjurations, and was never molested. The remarkable
adventure of Cellini with him in the Colosseum, where the priest con-
jured up a whole host of devils, is well known to the reading public.
The subsequent meeting of Cellini with his mistress, as predicted and
brought about by the conjurer, at the precise time fixed by him, is to
be considered, as a matter of course, a " curious coincidence." In
the latter part of the sixteenth century there was hardly a parish to
be found in which the priests did not study magic and alchemy. The
practice of exorcism to cast out devils "in imitation of Christ," who
by the way never used exorcism at all, led the clergy to devote them-
selves openly to "sacred" magic in contradistinction to black art, of
which latter crime were accused all those who were neither priests nor
monks.
S8 ISIS UNVEILED.
The occult knowledge gleaned by the Roman Church from the once
fat fields of theurgy she sedulously guarded for her own use, and sent to
the stake only those practitioners who " poached " on her lands of the
Scieniia Scientiarum, and those whose sins could not be concealed by the
fiiar's frock. The proof of it lies in the records of history. "In the
course only of fifteen years, between 1580 to 1595, and only in the single
province of Lorraine, the President Remigius burned 900 witches,"
says Thomas Wright, in his Sorcery and Magic. It was during these
days, prolific in ecclesiastical murder and unrivalled for cruelty and
ferocity, that Jean Bodin wrote.
While the orthodox clergy called forth whole legions of "demons"
through magical incantations, unmolested by the authorities, provided
they held fast to the established dogmas and taught no heresy, on the
other hand, acts of unparalleled atrocity were perpetrated on poor, unfor-
tunate fools. Gabriel Malagrida, an old man of eighty, was burnt by these
evangelical Jack Ketches in 1761. In the Amsterdam library there is a
copy of the report of his famous trial, translated from the Lisbon edition.
He was accused of sorcery and illicit intercourse with the Devil, who had
"disclosed to him futurity." ( ? ) The prophecy imparted by the Arch-
Enemy to the poor visionary Jesuit is reported in the following terms :
" The culprit hath confessed that the demon, under the form of the blessed
Virgin, having commanded him to write the life of Antichrist ( ? ), told him
that he, Malagrida, was a second John, but more clear than John the
Evangelist; that there were to be "three Antichrists, and that the last
should be born at Milan, of a monk and a nun, in the year 1920 ; that
he would marry Proserpine, one of the infernal furies," etc.
The prophecy is to be verified forty- three years hence. Even were all
the children born of monks and nuns really to become antichrists if
allowed to grow up to maturity, the fact would seem far less deplorable
than the discoveries made in so many convents when the foundations
have been removed for some reason. If the assertion of Luther is to be
disbelieved on account of his hatred for popery, then we may name dis-
coveries of the same character made quite recently in Austrian and
Russian Poland. Luther speaks of a fish-pond at Rome, situated near a
convent of nuns, which, having been cleared out by order of Pope Greg-
ory, disclosed, at the bottom, over six thousand infant skulls ; and of a
nunnery at Neinburg, in Austria, whose foundations, when searched, dis-
closed the same relics of celibacy and chastity !
" Ecclesia non novit Sanguinem I" meekly repeated the scarlet-robed
cardinals. And to avoid the spilling of blood which horrified them, they
instituted the Holy Inquisition. If, as the occultists maintain, and science
half confirms, our most trifling acts and thoughts are indelibly impressed
THE BLOODY RECORD OF TORQUEMADA. 59
upon the eternal mirror of the astral ether, there must be somewhere, in
the boundless realm of the unseen universe, the imprint of a curious
picture. It is that of a gorgeous standard waving in the heavenly breeze
at the foot of the great "white throne" of the Almighty. On its crimson
damask face a cross, symbol of " the Son of God who died for mankind,"
with an olive branch on one side, and a sword, stained to the hilt with
human gore, on the other. A legend selected from the Psalms embla-
zoned in golden letters, reading thus : " Exurge, Domine, et judica cau-
sam meam." For such appears the standard of the Inquisition, on a
photograph in our possession, from an original procured at the Escurial
of Madrid.
Under this Christian standard, in the brief space of fourteen years,
Tomas de Torquemada, the confessor of Queen Isabella, burned over ten
thousand persons, and sentenced to the torture eighty thousand more.
Orobio, the well-known writer, who was detained so long in prison, and
who hardly escaped the flames of the Inquisition, immortalized this insti-
tution in his works when once at liberty in Holland. He found no better
argument against the Holy Church than to embrace the Judaic faith and
submit even to circumcision. " In the cathedral of Saragossa," says a
writer on the Inquisition, "is the tomb of a famous inquisitor. Six pillars
surround the tomb ; to each is chained a Moor, as preparatory to being
burned." On this St. Foix ingenuously observes : " If ever the Jack
Ketch of any country should be rich enough to have a splendid tomb, this
might serve as an excellent model ! " To make it complete, however,
the builders of the tomb ought not to have omitted a bas-relief of the
famous horse which was burnt for sorcery and witchcraft. Granger tells
the story, describing it as having occurred in his time. The poor animal
"had been taught to tell the spots upon cards, and the hour of the day
by the watch. Horse and owner were both indicted by the sacred office
for dealing with the Devil, and both were burned, with a great ceremony
o{ auto-da-fe, at Lisbon, in 1601, as wizards!"
This immortal institution of Christianity did not remain without its
Dante to sing its praise. " Macedo, a Portuguese Jesuit," says the author
of Demonologia, " has discovered the origin of the Inquisition, in the
terrestrial Paradise, and presumes to allege that God was the first who
began the functions of an inquisitor over Cain and the workmen of
Babel ! "
Nowhere, during the middle ages, were the arts of magic and sorcery
more practiced by the clergy than in Spain and Portugal. The Moors
were profoundly versed in the occult sciences, and at Toledo, Seville,
and Salamanca, were, once upon a time, the great schools of magic. The
kabalists of the latter town were skilled in all the abstruse sciences ; they
6o ISIS UNVEILED.
knew the virtues of precious stones and other minerals, and had extracted
from alchemy its most profound secrets.
The authentic documents pertaining to the great trial of the Marechale
d'Ancre, during the regency of Marie de Medicis, disclose that the un-
fortunate woman perished through the fault of the priests with whom, like
a true Italian, she surrounded herself. She was accused by the people
of Paris of sorcery, because it had been asserted that she had used, after
the ceremony of exorcism, newly-killed white cocks. Believing herself
constantly bewitched, and being in very delicate health, the Marechale
had the ceremony of exorcism publicly applied to herself in the Church
of the Augustins ; as to the birds, she used them as an application to
the forehead on account of dreadful pains in the head, and had been ad-
vised to do so by Montalto, the Jew physician of the queen, and the Ital-
ian priests.
In the sixteenth century, the Cur6 de Barjota, of the diocese of Calla-
hora, Spain, became the world's wonder for his magical powers. His
most extraordinary feat consisted, it was said, in transporting himself to
any distant country, witnessing political and other events, and then
returning home to predict them in his own country. He had a familiar
demon, who served him faithfully for long years, says the Chronicle, but
the cur6 turned ungrateful and cheated him. Having been apprised by
his demon of a conspiracy against the Pope's life, in consequence of an
intrigue of the latter with a fair lady, the cure transported himself to
Rome (in his double, of course) and thus saved his Holiness' life. After
which he repented, confessed his sins to the gallant Pope, and got absolu-
tion. " On his return he was delivered, as a matter of form, into the
custody of the inquisitors of Logroiio, but was acquitted and restored to
his liberty very soon."
Friar Pietro, a Dominican monk of the fourteenth century — the magi-
cian who presented the famous Dr. Eugenic Torralva, a physician attached
to the house of the admiral of Castile, with a demon named Zequiel — won
his fame through the subsequent trial of Torralva. The procedure and
circumstances attendant upon the extraordinary trial are described in
the original papers preserved in the Archives of the Inquisition. The
Cardinal of Volterra, and the Cardinal of Santa Cruz, both saw and com-
municated with Zequiel, who proved, during the whole of Torralva's life,
to be a pure, kind, elemental spirit, doing many beneficent actions,
and remaining faithful to the physician to the last hour of his life.
Even the Inquisition acquitted Torralva, on that account ; and, although
an immortality of fame was insured to him by the satire of Cervantes,
neither Torralva nor the monk Pietro are fictitious heroes, but historical
personages, recorded in ecclesiastical documents of Rome and Cuenga,
WITCH-BURNINGS AT BAMBERG AND WURZBURG. 6 1
in which town the trial of the physician took place, Januar}' the 29th,
The book of Dr. W. G. Soldan, of Stuttgart, has become as famous
in Germany, as Bodin's book on Denwnomania in France. It is the
most complete German treatise on witchcraft of the sixteenth century.
One interested to learn the secret machinery underlying these thousands
of legal murders, perpetrated by a clergy who pretended to believe in the
Devil, and succeeded in making others believe in him, will find it divulged
in the above-mentioned work.* The true origin of the daily accusations
and death-sentences for sorcery are cleverly traced to personal and
political enmities, and, above all, to the hatred of the Catholics toward
the Protestants. The crafty work of the Jesuits is seen at every page of
the bloody tragedies ; and it is in Bamberg and Wurzburg, where these
worthy sons of Loyola were most powerful at that time, that the cases of
witchcraft were most numerous. On the next page we give a curious list
of some victims, many of whom were children between the ages of seven
and eight years, and Protestants. " Of the multitudes of persons who
perished at the stake in Germany during the first half of the seventeenth
century for sorcery, the crjme of many was their attachment to the relig-
ion of Luther," says T. Wright, "... and the petty princes were not
unwilling to seize upon any pretense to fill their coffers . . . the persons
most persecuted being those whose property was a matter of considera-
tion. ... At Bamberg, as well as at Wurzburg, the bishop was a sover-
eign prince in his dominions. The Prince-Bishop, John George IL, who
ruled Bamberg . . . after several unsuccessful attempts to root out Luth-
eranism, distinguished his reign by a series of sanguinary witch-trials,
which disgrace the annals of that city. . . . We may form some notion
of the proceedings of his worthy agent, f from the statement of the most
authentic historians, that between 1625 and 1630, not less than 900 trials
took place in the two courts of Bamberg and Zeil ; and a pamphlet pub-
lished at Bamberg by authority, in 1659, states the number of persons
whom Bishop John George had caused to be burned for sorcery, to have
been 600." \
Regretting that space should prevent our giving one of the most
curious lists in the world of burned witches, we will nevertheless make a
few extracts from the original record as printed in Hauber's Bibliotheca
* Dr. W. G. Soldan : " Geschichte der Hexen processe, aus den Quellen darges-
tellt," Stuttgart, 1843.
f Frederick Forner, Suffragan of Bamberg, author of a treatise against heretics
and sorcerers, under the title of " Panoplia Armaturoe Dei."
X " Sorcery and Magic," by T. Wright, M.A., F.S. A., etc., Corresponding Mem-
ber of the National Institute of France, vol. ii., p. 185.
62 ISIS UNVEILED.
Magica. One glance at this horrible catalogue of murders in Christ's
name, is sufficient to discover that out of 162 persons burned, more than
one-half of them are designated as strangers (i.e., Protestants) in this
hospitable town ; and of the other half we find thirty-four children, the
oldest of whom was fourteen, the youngest an infant child of Dr. Schiitz.
To make the catalogue shorter we will present of each of the twenty-nine
burnings, but the most remarkable.*
IN THE FIRST BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.
Old Ancker's widow.
The wife of Liebler.
The wife of Gutbrodt.
The wife of Hocker.
IN THE SECOND BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.
Two Strange women (names unknown).
The old wife of iBeutler.
IN THE THIRD BURNING, FIVE PERSONS.
Tungersleber, a minstrel.
Four wives of citizens.
IN THE FOURTH BURNING, FIVE PERSONS.
A Strange man.
IN THE FIFTH BURNING, NINE PERSONS.
Lutz, an eminent shop-keeper.
The -wife of Baunach, a senator.
IN THE SIXTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
The fat tailor's wife.
A strange man.
A strange woman.
* Besides these burnings in Germany, which amount to many thousands, we find
some very interesting statements in Prof. Draper's " Conflict between Religion and
Science." On page 146, he says: " The families of the convicted were plunged into
irretrievable ruin. Llorente, the historian of the Inquisition, computes that Torque-
mada and his collaborators, in the course of eighteen years, burned at the stake
10,220 persons, 6,S6o in effigy, and otherwise punished 97,321 ! . . . With unutter-
able disgust and indignation, we learn that the papal government realized much money
by selling to the rich, dispensations to secure them from the Inquisition."
A RECORD OF FIENDISH CRUELTY. 63
IN THE SEVENTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.
A Strange girl of twelve years old.
A strange man, a strange woman.
A strange bailiff (Schultheiss).
Three strange women.
IN THE EIGHTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.
Baunach, a senator, the fattest citizen in Wurzburg.
A strange man.
Two strange women.
IN THE NINTH BURNING, FIVE PERSONS.
A strange man.
A mother and daughter.
IN THE TENTH BURNING, THREE PERSONS.
Steinacher, a very rich man.
A strange man, a strange woman.
IN THE ELEVENTH BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.
Two women and two men.
IN THE TWELFTH BURNING, TWO PERSONS.
Two strange women.
IN THE THIRTEENTH BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.
A little girl nine or ten years old.
A younger girl, her little sister.
IN THE FOURTEENTH BURNING, TWO PERSONS.
The mother of the two little girls before mentioned.
A girl twenty-four years old.
IN THE FIFTEENTH BURNING, TWO PERSONS.
A boy twelve years of age, in the first school.
A woman.
IN THE SIXTEENTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
A boy of ten years of age.
IN THE SEVENTEENTH BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.
A boy eleven years old.
A mother and daughter.
64 ISIS UNVEILED.
IN THE EIGHTEENTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
Two boys, twelve years old.
The daughter of Dr. Junge.
A girl of fifteen years of age.
A strange woman.
IN THE NINETEENTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
A boy of ten years of age.
Another boy, twelve years old.
IN THE TWENTIETH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
Gobel's child, the most beautiful girl in Wurzburg.
Two boys, each twelve years old.
Stepper's little daughter.
IN THE TWENTY-FIRST BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
A boy fourteen years old.
The little son of Senator Stolzenberger.
Two alumni.
IN THE TWENTY-SECOND BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
Stiirman, a rich cooper.
A strange boy.
IN THE TWENTY -THIRD BURNING, NINE PERSONS.
David Croten's boy, nine years old.
The two sons of the prince's cook, one fourteen, the other ten years old.
IN THE TWENTY-FOURTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.
Two boys in the hospital.
A rich cooper.
IN THE TWENTY-FIFTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
A strange boy.
IN THE TWENTY-SIXTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.
Weydenbush, a senator.
The little daughter of Valkenberger.
The little son of the town council bailiff.
IN THE TWENTY-SEVENTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.
A strange boy.
A strange woman.
Another boy.
THE HORRID TOTAL. 65
IN THE TWENTY-EIGHTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
The infant daughter of Dr. Schiitz.
A bhnd girl.
IN THE TWENTY-NINTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.
The fat noble lady (Edelfrau).
A doctor of divinity.
Item.
Summary :
'"Strange" men and women, i.e., Protestants, 28
Citizens, apparently all wealthy people, 100
Boys, girls, and little children, 34
In nineteen months, 162 persons.
" There were," says Wright, " little girls of from seven to ten years
of age among the witches, and seven and twenty of them were convicted
and burnt," at some of the other brdnde, or burnings. " The number;
brought to trial in these terrible proceedings were so great, and they
were treated with so little consideration, that it was usual not even to
take the trouble of setting down their names, but they were cited as the
accused No. i. No. 2, No. 3, and so on.* The Jesuits took their con-
fessions in private."
What room is there in a theology which exacts such holocausts as these
to appease the bloody appetites of its priests for the following gentle
words :
" Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not ; for
of such is the kingdom of Heaven." " Even so it is not the will of your
Father . . . that one of these little ones should perish." "But whoso
shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better
for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were
drowned in the depths of the sea."
We sincerely hope that the above words have proved no vain threat
to these child-burners.
Did this butchery in the name of their Moloch-god prevent these
treasure-hunters from resorting to the black art themselves ? Not in the
least ; for in no class were such consulters of " familiar " spirits more
numerous than among the clergy during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and
seventeenth centuries. True, there were some Catholic priests among
the victims, but though these were generally accused of having " been
* " Sorcery and Magic ; " " The Burnings at Wiirtzburg," p. 186.
5
66 ISIS UNVEILED.
led into practices too dreadful to be described," it was not so. In the
twenty-nine burnings above catalogued we find the names of twelve
vicars, four canons, and two doctors of divinity burnt alive. But we
have only to turn to such works as were published at the time to assure
ourselves that each popish priest executed was accused of " damnable
heresy," i.e., a tendency to reformation — a crime more heinous far than
sorcery.
We refer those who would learn how the Catholic clergy united duty
with pleasure in the matter of exorcisms, revenge, and treasure-hunting,
to volume II., chapter i., of W. Howitt's History of the Supernatural.
" In the book called Pneumatologia Occulta et Vera, all the forms of
adjuration and conjuration were laid down," says this veteran writer.
He then proceeds to give a long description of the favorite modus
operandi. The Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie of the late Eliphas
Levi, treated with so much abuse and contempt by des Mousseaux,
tells nothing of the weird ceremonies and practices but what was prac-
ticed legally and with the tacit if not open consent of the Church, by the
priests of the middle ages. The exorcist-priest entered a circle at mid-
night ; he was clad in a new surplice, and had a consecrated band hanging
from the neck, covered with sacred characters. He wore on the head a
tall pointed cap, on the front of which was written in Hebrew the holy
word, Tetragrammaton — the ineffable name. It was written with a new
pen dipped in the blood of a white dove. What the exorcists most
yearned after, was to release miserable spirits which haunt spots where
hidden treasures lie. The exorcist sprinkles the circle with the blood
of a black lamb and a white pigeon. The priest had to adjure the evil
spirits of hell — Acheront, Magoth, Asmodei, Beelzebub, Belial, and all the
damned souls, in the mighty names of Jehovah, Adonay, Elohah, and
Sabaioth, which latter was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who
dwelt in the Uiim and Thuramim. When the damned souls flung in the
face of the exorcist that he was a sinner, and could not get the treasure
from them, the priest-sorcerer had to reply that " all his sins were washed
out in the blood of Christ,* and he bid them depart as cursed ghosts and
damned flies." When the exorcist dislodged them at last, the poor soul
was " comforted in the name of the Saviour, and consigned to the care of
good angels" who were less powerful, we must think, than the exorcising
Catholic worthies, " and the rescued treasure, of course, was secured for
the Church."
" Certain days," adds Howitt, " are laid down in the calendar of the
* And retinted in the blood of the millions murdered in his name — in the no less
innocent blood than his own, of the little c\iA&-witches !
SOLOMON'S SEVEN ABOMINATIONS. &■]
Church as most favorable for the practice of exorcism ; and, if the devils
are difficult to drive, a fume of sulphur, assafoetida, bear's gall, and rue is
recommended, which, it was presumed, would outstench even devils."
This is the Church, and this the priesthood, which, in the nineteenth
century, pays 5,000 priests to teach the people of the United States the
infidelity of science and the infallibility of the Bishop of Rome !
We have already noticed the confession of an eminent prelate
that the elimination of Satan from theology would be fatal to the per-
petuity of the Church. But this is only partially true. The Prince of
Sin would be gone, but sin itself would survive. If the Devil were
annihilated, the Articles of Faith and the Bible would remain. In short
there would still be a pretended divine revelation, and the necessity for
self-assumed inspired interpreters. We must, therefore, consider the
authenticity of the Bible itself We must study its pages, and see if
they, indeed, contain the commands of the Deity, or but a compendium
of ancient traditions and hoary myths. We must try to interpret them
for ourselves — if possible. As to its pretended interpreters, the only
possible assimilation we can find for them in the Bible is to compare
them with the man described by the wise King Solomon in his Proverbs,
with the perpetrator of these " six things . . . yea seven . . . which
doth the Lord hate," and which are an abomination unto Him, to wit :
" A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood ;
an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in run-
ning to mischief; a false ivitness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth
discord among brethren" [Proverbs y'\. 16, 17, 18, 19).
Of which of these accusations are the long line of men who have left
the imprint of their feet in the Vatican guiltless ?
" When the demons," says Augustine, " insinuate themselves in the
creatures, they begin by conforming themselves to the will of every one.
... In order to attract men, they begin by seducing them, by simula-
ting obedience. . . . How could one know, had he not been taught by the
demons themselves, what they like or what they hate ; the name which at-
tracts, or that which forces them into obedience ; all this art, in short, of
magic, the whole science of the magicians ? " *
To this impressive dissertation of the " saint," we will add that no
magician has ever denied that he had' learned the art from " spirits,"
whether, being a medium, they acted independently on him, or he had
been initiated into the science of " evocation " by his fathers who knew
it before himself. But who was it then that taught the exorcist ? The priest
* St. Augustine : " City of God," i, xxi., ch. vi. ; des Mousseaux : " Moeuis et Pra-
tiques des Demons."
68 ISIS UNVEILED.
who clothes himself with an authority not only over the magician, but
even over all these " spirits," whom he calls demons and devils as soon
as he finds them obeying any one but himself? He must have learned
somewhere from some one that power which he pretends to possess.
P'or, "... how could one know had he not been taught by the demons them-
selves . . . the name which attracts, or that which forces them into obedi-
ence 1 " asks Augustine.
Useless to remark that we know the answer beforehand : " Revela-
tion . . . divine gift . . . the Son of God ; nay, God Himself, through
His direct Spirit, who descended on the apostles as the Pentecostal fire,
and who is now alleged to overshadow every priest who sees fit to ex-
orcise for either glory or a gift. Are we then to believe that the recent
scandal of public exorcism, performed about the 14th of October, 1876,
by the senior priest of the Church -of the Holy Spirit, at Barcelona, Spain,
was also done under the direct superintendence of the Holy Ghost ? *
* A correspondent of the London " Times" describes the Catalonian exorcist in the
following lines :
" About the 14th of October it was privately announced that a young woman of
seventeen or eighteen years of age, of the lower class, having long been afflicted with
' a hatred of holy things,' the senior priest of the Church of the Holy Spirit would cure
her of her disease. The exhibition was to be held in a church frequented by the best
part of the community. The church was dark, but a sickly light was shed by wax
lights on the sable forms of some eighty or a hundred persons who clustered round the
presbyterio, or sanctuary, in front of the altar. Within the little enclosure or sanc-
tuary, separated from the crowd by a light railnig, lay, on a common bench, with a little
pillow for her head to recline upon, a poorly-clad girl, probably of the peasant or ar-
tisan class ; her brother or husband stood at her feet to restrain her (at times) frantic
kicking by holding her legs. The door of the vestry opened ; t!ie exhibitor — I mean
the priest — came in. The poor girl, not without just reason, 'had an aversion to holy
things,' or. at least, the 400 devils within her distorted body had such an aversion, and
in the confusion of the moment, thinking that the father was ' a holy thing,' she doubled
up her legs, screamed out with twitching mouth, her whole body writhing, and threw her-
self nearly off the bench. The male attendant seized her legs, the women supported her
head and swept out her dishevelled hair. The priest advanced and, mingling familiarly
with the shuddering and horror-struck crowd, said, pointing at the suffering child,
now sobbing and twitching on the bench, ' Promise me, my children, that you will be
prudent (priidentcs), and of a truth, sons and daughters mine, you shall see marvels.'
The promise was given. The exhibitor went to procure stole and short surplice (esiola
y roquete), and returned in a moment, taking his stand at the side of the ' possessed
with the devils,' with his face toward the group of students. The order of the day's
proceedings was a lecture to the bystanders, and the operation of exorcising the devils.
'You know,' said the priest, ' that so great is this girl's aversion to holy things, myself
included, that she goes into convulsions, kicks, screams, and distorts her body the mo-
ment she arrives at the corner of this street, and her convulsive struggles reach their
climax when she enters the sacred house of the Most High.' Turning to the prostrate
shudderiiig, most unhappy object of his attaA, the priest commenced: ' In the name of
A PAPAL BULL AGAINST SPIRITUALISM. 69
It will be urged that the " bishop was not cognizant of this freak of the
clergy ; " but even if he were, how could he have protested against a rite
considered since the days of the apostles, one of the most hofy preroga-
tives of the Church of Rome ? So late as in 1852, only twenty-five
years ago, these rites received a public and solemn sanction from the
Vatican, and a new Ritual of Exorcism was published in Rome, Paris,
and other Catholic capitals. Des Mousseaux, writing under the imme-
diate patronage of Father Ventura, the General of the Theatines of
Rome, even favors us with lengthy extracts from this famous ritual, and
explains the reason why it was enforced again. It was in consequence
of the revival of Magic under the name of Modern Spiritualism. The
bull of Pope Innocent VIII. is exhumed, and translated for the benefit
of des Mousseaux's readers. "We have heard," exclaims the Sovereign
Pontiff, " that a great number of persons of both sexes have feared not to
enter into relations with the spirits of hell ; and that, by their practice of
sorcery . . . they strike with sterility the conjugal bed, destroy the germs
of humanity in the bosom of the mother, and throw spells on them, and
set a barrier to the multiplication of animals . . . etc., etc.;" then fol-
low curses and anathemas against the practice.
This belief of the Sovereign Pontiffs of an enlightened Christian coun-
try is a direct inheritance by the most ignorant multitudes from the southern
Hindu rabble — the "heathen." The diabolical arts of certain kangalins
(witches) and jadugar (sorcerers) are firmly believed in by these people.
The following are among their most dreaded powers : to inspire love and
hatred at will ; to send a devil to take possession of a person and torture
God, of the saints, of the blessed Host, of every holy sacrament of our Church, I adjure
thee, Rusbel, come out of her.' (N. B. ' Rusbel ' is the name of a devil, the devil having
257 names in Catalonia.) Thus adjured, the girl threw herself — in an agony of convul-
sion, till her distorted face, foam-bespattered lips and writhing limbs grew well-nigh
stiff — at full length upon the floor, and, in language semi-obscene, semi-violent, screamed
out, 'I don't choose to come out, you thieves, scamps, robbers.' At last, from the
quivering lips of the girl, came the words, ' I will ; ' but the devil added, with tra-
ditional perversity, ' I will cast the 100 out, but by the mouth of the girl.' The priest
objected. The exit, he said, of ichd devils out of the small Spanisli mouth of the woman
would Meave her suffocated.' Then the maddened girl said she must undress herself
for the devils to escape. This petition the holy father refused, * Then I will come
out through the right foot, but first ' — the girl had on a hempen sand-al, she was ob-
viously of the poorest class — ' you must take off her sandal.' Tlie sandal was untied ;
the foot gave a convulsive plunge ; the devil and his myrmidons (so the cura said,
looking round triumphantly) had gone to their own place. And, assuied of this, the
wretched dupe of a girl lay quite still. The bishop was not cognizant of this freak of
the clergy, and the moment it came to the ears of the civil authorities, the sharpest
means were taken to prevent a repetition of the scandal."
70 ISIS UNVEILED.
him ; to expel him ; to cause sudden death or an incurable disease ; to
either strike cattle with or protect them from epidemics ; to compose
philtres that will either strike with sterility or provoke unbounded pas-
sions iii men and women, etc., etc. The sight alone of a man said to be
such a sorcerer excites in a Hindu profound terror.
And now we will quote in this connection the truthful remark of a
writer who passed years in India in the study of the origin of such super-
stitions : " Vulgar magic in India, like a degenerated infiltration, goes
hand-in-hand with the most ennobling beliefs of the sectarians of the
Pit r is. It was the work of the lowest clergy, and designed to hold the
populace in a perpetual state of fear. It is thus that in all ages and
under every latitude, side by side with philosophical speculations of the
highest character, one always finds the religion of the rabble." * In
India it was the work of the lowest clergy ; in Rome, that of the highest
Pontiffs. But then, have they not as authority their greatest saint,
Augustine, who declares that " whoever believes not in the evil spirits,
refuses to believe in Holy Writ ? " f
Therefore, in the second half of the nineteenth century, we find the
counsel for the Sacred Congregation of Rites (exorcism of demons in-
cluded). Father Ventura de Raulica, writing thus, in a letter published
by des Mousseaux, in 1865 :
" We are in full magic! and under false names ; the Spirit of lies and impudicity
goes on perpetrating his horrible deprecations. . . . The most grievous feature in this
is that among the most serious persons they do not attach the importance to the strange
phenomena which they deserve, these manifestations that we witness, and which become
with every day more weird, striking, as well as most fatal.
" I cannot sufficiently admire and praise, from this standpoint, the zeal and courage
displayed by you in your work. The facts which you have collected are calculated to
throw light and conviction into the most skeptical minds ; and after reading this remark-
able work, written with so much learnedness and consciousness, blindness is no longer
possible.
" If anything could surprise us, it would be the indifference with which these phe-
nomena have been treated by false .Science, endeavoring, as she has, to turn into ridicule
so grave a subject ; the childish simplicity exhibited by her in the desire to explain the
facts by absurd and contradictory hypotheses. . . . \
[Signed] " The Father Ventura de Raulica, etc., etc.
Thus encouraged by the greatest authorities of the Church of Rome,
ancient and modern, the Chevalier argues the necessity and the efficacy of
exorcism by the priests. He tries to demonstrate — on faith, as usual
* Louis JacoUiot : " Le Spiritisme dans le Monde," p. 162.
f St. Augustine ; " City of God."
X " Moeurs et Pratiques de? Demons," p. ii.
A MUSEUM OF ASTONISHING RELICS. 7 1
that the power of the spirits of hell is closely related to certain rites,
words, and formal signs. " In the diabolical Catholicism," he says,
"as well as in the divine Catholicism, potential grace is bound (iiee) to
certain signs." While the power of the Catholic priest proceeds from
God, that of the Pagan priest proceeds from the Devil. The Devil, he
adds, "is forced to submission" before the holy minister of God — •' ke
dares nnt i.te." *
We beg the reader to note well the underlined sentence, as we
mean to test its truth impartially. We are prepared to adduce proofs,
undeniable and undenied even by the Popish Church — forced, as she
was, into the confession — proofs of hundreds of cases in relation to the
most solemn of her dogmas, wherein the " spirits " lied from beginning
to end. How about certain holy relics authenticated by visions of the
blessed Virgin, and a host of saints ? We have at hand a treatise by a
pious Catholic, Jilbert de Nogen, on the relics of saints. With honest
despair he acknowledges the "great number of false relics, as well as -
false legends," and severely censures the inventors of these lying mira-
cles. " It was on the occasion of one of our Saviour's teeth," writes the
author of Demonologia, " that de Nogen took up his pen on this subject,
by which the monks of St. Medard de Soissons pretended to work mira-
cles ; a pretension which he asserted to be as chimerical as that of several
persons who believed they possessed the navel, and other parts less
comely, of the body of Christ." f
"A monk of St. Antony," says Stephens, J "having been at Jerusa-
lem, saw there several relics, among which was a bit of the finger of the
Holy Ghost, as sound and entire as it had ever been ; the snout of the
seraph that appeared to St. Francis ; one of the nails of a cherub ;
one of the ribs of the Verbum caro factum (the Word made flesh) ; some
rays of the star that appeared to the three kings of the East ; a phial of
St. Michael's sweat, that exuded when he was fighting against the Devil,
etc. ' All which things,' observes the monkish treasurer of relics, ' I have
brought with me home very devoutly.' "
And if the foregoing is set aside as the invention of a Protestant enemy,
may we not be allowed to refer the reader to the History of England and
authentic documents which state the existence of a relic not less extraor-
dinary than the best of the others ? Henry III. received from the Grand
Master of the Templars a phial containing a small portion of the sacred
blood of Christ which he had shed upon the cross. It was attested to be
genuine by the seals of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and others. The
* Des Mousseaux : "Table des Matieres."
f "Demonologia ; " London, 1S27, J. Bumpus, 23 Skinner Street.
\ " Traite Preparatif a I'Apologie pour Herodote," c. 39.
72 ISIS UNVEILED.
procession bearing the sacred phial from St. Paul's to Westminster Abbey
is described by the historian: "Two monks received the phial, and
deposited it in the Abbey . . . which made all England shine with glory,
dedicating it to God and St. Edward."
The story of the Prince Radzivil is well known. It was the undenia-
ble decepdon of the monks and nuns surrounding him and his own
confessor which made the Polish nobleman become a Lutheran. He felt
at first so indignant at the " heresy " of the Reformation spreading in
Lithuania, that he travelled all the way to Rome to pay his homage of
sympathy and veneration to the Pope. The latter presented him with a
precious box of relics. On his return home, his confessor saw the Virgin,
who descended from her glorious abode for the sole purpose of blessing
these relics and authenticating them. The superior of the neighboring
convent and the mother-abbess of a nunnery both saw the same vision,
with a reenforcement of several saints and martyrs ; they prophesied and
"felt the Holy Ghost" ascending from the box of relics and overshadow-
ing the prince. A demoniac provided for the purpose by the clergy was
exorcised in full ceremony, and upon being touched by the box immedi-
ately recovered, and rendered thanks on the spot to the Pope and the
Holy Ghost. After the ceremony was over the guardian of the treasury
in which the relics were kept, threw himself at the feet of the prince, and
confessed that on their way back from Rome he had lost the box of relics.
Dreading the wrath of his master, he had procured a similar box, "which
he had filled with the small bones of dogs and cats ;" but seeing how the
prince was deceived, he preferred confessing his guilt to such blasphemous
tricks. The prince said nothing, but continued for some time testing —
not the relics, but his confessor and the vision-seers. Their mock raptures
made him discover so thoroughly the gross impositions of the monks and
nuns that he joined the Reformed Church.
This is history. Bayle shows that when the Roman Church is no
longer able to deny that there have been false rehcs, she resorts to soph-
istry, and replies that if false rehcs have wrought miracles it is " because
of the good intentions of the believers, who thus obtained from God a
reward of their good faith ! " The same Bayle shows, by numerous in-
stances, that whenever it was proved that several bodies of the same saint,
or three heads of him, or three arms (as in the case of Augustine) were said
to exist in different places, and that they could not well be all authentic,
the cool and invariable answer of the Church was that they were all
genuine ; for " God had multiplied and miraculously reproduced them
for the greater glory of His Holy Church ! " In other words they would
have the faithful believe that the body of a deceased saint may, through
divine miracle, acquire the physiological peculiarities of a crawfish !
A DECEIVING CLERGY AND JOYING SPIRITS. 73
We fancy that it would be hard to demonstrate to satisfaction that the
visions of Catholic saints, are, in any one particular instance, better or
more trustworthy than the average visions and prophecies of ouf modern
" mediums." The visions of Andrew Jackson Davis — however our critics
may sneer at them — are by long odds more philosophical and more com-
patible with modern science than the Augustinian speculations. When-
ever the visions of Swedenborg, the greatest among the modern seers,
run astray from philosophy and scientific truth^ it is when they most run
parallel with theology. Nor are these visions any more useless to either
science or humanity than those of the great orthodox saints. In the life
of St. Bernard it is narrated that as he was once in church, upon a Christ-
mas eve, he prayed that the very hour in which Christ was born might be
revealed to him ; and when the " true and correct hour came, he saw the
divine babe appear in his manger." What a pity that the divine babe did
not embrace so favorable an opportunity to fix the correct day and year
of his death, and thereby reconcile the controversies of his putative
historians. The Tischendorfs, Lardners, and Colensos, as well as many
a Catholic divine, who have vainly squeezed the marrow out of historical
records and their own brains, in the useless search, would at least have
had something for which to thank the saint.
As it is, we are hopelessly left to infer that most of the beatific and
divine visions of the Golden Legend, and those to be found in the more
complete biographies of the most important " saints," as well as most
of the visions of our own persecuted seers and seeresses, were produced
by ignorant and undeveloped " spirits " passionately fond of personating
great historical characters. We are quite ready to agree with the Chev-
alier des Mousseaux, and other unrelenting persecutors of magic and spir-
itualism in the name of the Church, that modern spirits are often " lying
spirits ; " that they are ever on hand to humor the respective hobbies of
the persons who communicate with them at " circles ; " that they deceive
them and, therefore, are not always good " spirits."
But, having conceded so much, we will now ask of any impartial
person : is it possible to believe at the same time that the power given
to the exorcist-priest, that supreme and divine power of which he boasts,
has been given to him by God for the purpose of deceiving people ?
That the prayer pronounced by him in the name of Christ, and which,
forcing the demon into submission, makes him reveal himself, is calculated
at the same time to make the devil confess not the truth, but that only
which it is the interest of the church to which the exorcist belongs, should
pass for truth 1 And this is what invariably happens. Compare, for
instance, the responses given by the demon to Luther, with those
obtained from the devils by St. Dominick. The one argues against the
74 ISIS UNVEILED.
private mass, and upbraids Luther with placing the Virgin Mary and
saints before Christ, and thus dishonoring the Son of God ; * wiiile the
demons exorcised by St. Dominick, upon seeing the Virgin whom the
holy father had also evoked to help him, roar out : " Oh ! our enemy !
oh ! our damner ! . . . why didst thou descend from heaven to torment us ?
Why art thou so powerful an intercessor for sinners ! Oh ! thou most
certain and secure way to heaven . . . thou commandest us and we are
forced to confess that nobody is damned 'who only perseveres in thy holy
worship, etc., etc."f Luther's " Saint Satan " assures him that while
believing in the transubstantiation of Christ's body and blood he had
been worshipping merely bread and wine ; and the devils of all the
Catholic saints promise eternal damnation to whomsoever disbelieves or
even so much as doubts the dogma !
Before leaving the subject, let us give one or two more instances from
the Chronicles of the Lives of the Saints, selected from such narratives
as are fully accepted by the Church. We might fill volumes with proofs
of undeniable confederacy between the exorcisers and the demons. Their
very nature betrays them. Instead of being independent, crafty entities,
bent on the destruction of men's souls and spirits, the majority of them
are simply the elementals of the kabalists ; creatures with no intellect
of their own, but faithful mirrors of the will which evokes, controls, and
guides them. We will not waste our time in drawing the reader's atten-
tion to doubtful or obscure thaumaturgists and exorcisers, but take as
our standard one of the greatest saints of Catholicism, and select a bou-
quet from that same prolific conservatory of pious lies, The Golden
Legend, of James de Veragine. J
St. Dominick, the founder of the famous order of that name, is one of
the mightiest saints on the calendar. His order was the first that received
a solemn confirmation from the Pope,§ and he is well known in history
as the associate and counsellor of the infamous Simon de Montford, the
papal general, whom he helped to butcher the unfortunate Albigenses in
and near Toulouse. The story goes that this saint and the Church after
him, claim that he received from the Virgin, in propria persona, a rosary,
whose virtues produced such stupendous miracles that they throw entirely
into the shade those of the apostles, and even of Jesus himself. A man,
says the biographer, an abandoned sinner, was bold enough to doubt the
* De Missa Privata et Unctione Sacerdotum.
f See the "Life of St. Dominick " and the story about the miraculous Rosary;
also the " Golden Legend."
% James de Varasse, known by the Latin name of James de Veragine, was Vicar-
General of the Dominicans and Bishop of Genoa in 1290.
g Thirteenth century.
dominick's dialogue with the devils. 75
virtue of the Dominican rosary ; and for this unparalleled blasphemy was
punished on the spot by having 15,000 devils take possession of him.
Seeing the great suffering of the tortured demoniac, St. Dominifck forgot
the insult and called the devils to account.
Following is the colloquy between the " blessed exorcist " and the
demons :
Question. — How did you take possession of this man, and how many
are you ?
Annc'cr of the Devils. — We came into luui for having spoken disre-
spectfully of the rosary. We are 15,000.
Question. — Why did so many as 15,000 enter him ?
Answer. — Because there are fifteen decades in the rosary which he
derided, etc.
Dominick. — Is not all true I have said of the virtues of the rosary ?
Devils. — Yes ! Yes ! (they emit flames through the nostrils of the
demoniac). Know all ye Christians that Dominick never said one word
concerning the rosary that is not most true ; and know ye further, that
if you do not believe him, great calamities will befall you.
Dominick. — Who is the man in the world the Devil hates the most ?
Devils. — (//z chorus.) Thou art the very man (here follow verbose
compliments).
Dominick. — Of which state of Christians are there the most damned?
Devils. — In hell we have merchants, pawnbrokers, fraudulent bankers,
grocers, Jews, apothecaries, etc., etc.
Dominick. — Are there any priests or monks in hell ?
Devils. — There are a great number of priests, but no monks, with the
exception of such as have transgressed the rule of their order.
Dominick. — Have you any Dominicans ?
Devils. — Alas ! alas ! we have not one yet, but we expect a great
number of them after their devotion is a little cooled.
We do not pretend to give the questions and answers literally, for
they occupy twenty-three pages ; but the substance is here, as may be
seen by any one who cares to read the Golden Legend. The full descrip-
tion of the hideous bellowings of the demons, their enforced glorification
of the saint, and so on, is too long for this chapter. Suffice it to say
that as we read the numerous questions offered by Dominick and the
answers of the demons, we become fully convinced that they corroborate
in every detail the unwarranted assertions and support the interests of
the Church. The narrative is suggestive. The legend graphically
describes the battle of the exorcist with the legion from the bottomless
pit. The sulphurous flames which burst forth from the nose, mouth,
eyes, and ears, of the demoniac ; the sudden appearance of over a hun-
"je ISIS UNVEILED.
dred angels, clad in golden armor ; and, finally, the descent of the blessed
Virgin herself, in person, bearing a golden rod, with which she adminis-
ters a sound thrashing to the demoniac, to force the devils to confess that
of herself which we s-carcely need repeat. The whole catalogue of theo-
logical' truths uttered by Dominick's devils were embodied in so many
articles of faith by his Holiness, the present Pope, in 1870, at the last
CEcumenical Council.
From the foregoing it is easy to see that the only substantial differ-
ence between infidel "mediums" and orthodox saints lies in the relative
usefulness of the demons, if demons we must call them. While the Devil
faithfully supports the Christian exorcist in his orthodox (?) views, the
modern spook generally leaves his medium in the lurch. For, by lying,
he acts against his or her interests rather than otherwise, and thereby
too often casts foul suspicion on the genuineness of the mediumship.
Were niodern " spirits" devils, they would evidently display a little more
discrimination and cunning than they do. They would act as the demons
of the saint which, compelled by the ecclesiastical magician and by the
power of " the name . . . which forces them into submission," lie in
accordance with the direct interest of the exorcist and his church. The
moral of the parallel we leave to the sagacity of the reader.
" Observe well," exclaims des Mousseaux, " that there are demons
which sometimes will speak the truth." " The exorcist," he adds, quoting
the 7?z/«t7/, "must command the demon to tell him whether he is de-
tained in the body of the demoniac through some magic art, or by signs,
or any objects which usually serve for this evil practice. In case the
exorcised person has swallowed the latter, he must vomit them back ;
and if they are not in his body, the demon must indicate the proper place
where they are to be found ; and having found them they must be
burned." * Thus some demons reveal the existence of the bewitchment,
tell who is its author, and indicate the means to destroy the malefice.
But beware to ever resort, in such a case, to magicians, sorcerers, or
mediums. You must call to help you but the minister of your Church !"
"The Church beheves in magic, as you well see," he adds, " since she
expresses it so formally. And those who disbelieve in magic, can they
still hope to share the faith of their own Church ? And who can teach
them better? To whom did Christ say : ' Go ye therefore, and teach all
nations . . . and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the
world ? ' " t
Are we to believe that he said this but to those who wear these black
* "Rituale Romanum," pp. 475-478. Parisiis, 1852.
f " Moeurs et Pratiques des Demons," p. 177.
HALF-CONVERTED DRAGONS AND WOLVES. 7/
or scarlet liveries of Rome ? Must we then credit the story that this
power was given by Christ to Simon Stylites, the saint who sanctified
himself by jjerching on a pillar {stylos) sixty feet high, for thirty-six years
of his life, without ever descending from it, in order that, among other
miracles stated in the Golden Legend, he might cure a dragon of a sore
eye ? " Near Simon's pillar was the dwelling of a dragon, so very
venomous that the stench was spread for miles round his cave." This
ophidian-hermit met with an accident ; he got a thorn in his eye, and,
hecoming blind, crept to the saint's pillar, and pressed his eye against it
for three days, without touching any one. Then the blessed saint, from
his aerial seat, " three feet in diameter," ordered earth and water to be
placed on the dragon's eye, out of which suddenly emerged a thorn (or
stake), a cubit in length ; when the people saw the " miracle " they glori-
fied the Creator. As to the grateful dragon, he arose and, " having adored
God for two hours, returned to his cave " * — a half-converted ophidian,
we must suppose.
And what are we to think of that other narrative, to disbelieve in
which is "to risk on^s salvation," as we were informed by a Pope's
missionary, of the Order of the P'ranciscans ? When St. Francis preached
a sermon in the wilderness, the birds assembled from the four cardinal
points of the world. They warbled and api)lauded every sentence ; they
sang a holy mass in chorus ; finally they dispersed to carry the glad
tidings all over the universe. A grasshopper, profiting by the absence
of the Holy Virgin, who generally kept company with the saint, remained
perched on the head of the " blessed one " for a whole week. Attacked
by a ferocious wolf, the saint, who had no other weapon but the sign
of the cross which he made upon himself, instead of running away from
his rabid assailant, began arguing with the beast. Having imparted to
him the benefit to be derived from the holy religion, St. Francis never
ceased talking until the wolf became as meek as a lamb, and even
shed tears of repentance over his past sins. Finally, he " stretched his
paws in the hands of the saint, followed him like a dog through all the
towns in which he preached, and became half a Christian ! "f Wonders
of zoology ! a horse turned sorcerer, a wolf and a dragori turned Chris-
tians !
These two anecdotes, chosen at random from among hundreds, if
rivalled are not surpassed by the wildest romances of the Pagan thau-
maturgists, magicians, and spiritualists ! And yet, when Pythagoras is
said to have subdued animals, even wild beasts, merely through a power-
* See the narrative selected from the " Golden Legend," by Alban Butler,
f See the " Golden Legend ; " " Life of St. Francis;" "Deraonologia."
78 ISIS UNVEILED.
fill mesmeric influence, he is pronounced by one-half of the Catholics a
bare-faced impostor, and by the rest a sorcerer, who worked magic in
confederacy with the Devil ! Neither the she-bear, nor the eagle, nor
yet the bull that Pythagoras is said to have persuaded to give up eating
beans, were alleged to have answered with human voices ; while St. Ben-
edict's "black raven," whom he called "brother," argues with him, and
croaks his answers like a born casuist. When the saint offers him one-
half of a poisoned loaf, the raven grows indignant and reproaches him in
Latin as though he had just graduated at the Propaganda !
If it be objected that the Golden Legend is now but half supported
by the Church ; and that it is known to have been compiled by the writer
from a collection of the lives of the saints, for the most part unauthenti-
cated, we can show that, at least in one instance, the biography is no
legendary compilation, but the history of one man, by another one who
was his contemporary. Jortin and Gibbons demonstrated years ago, that
the early fathers used to select narratives, wherewith to ornament the
lives of their apocryphal saints, from Ovid, Homer, Livy, and even from
the unwritten popular legends of Pagan nations. But such is not the case
in the above instances. St. Bernard lived in the twelfth century, a'nd St.
Dominick was nearly contemporaneous with the author of the Golden
Legend. De Veragine died in 1298, and Dominick, whose exorcisms
and life he describes so minutely, instituted his order in the first quarter
of the thirteenth century. Moreover, de Veragine was Vicar-General of
the Dominicans himself, in the middle of the same century, and therefore
described the miracles wrought by his hero and patron but a few years
after they were alleged to have happened. He wrote them in the same
convent ; and while narrating these wonders he had probably fifty persons
at hand who had been eye-witnesses to the saint's mode of living. What
must we think, in such a case, of a biographer who seriously describes the
following : One day, as the blessed saint was occupied in his study, the
Devil began pestering him, in the shape of a flea. He frisked and jumped
about the pages of his book until the harassed saint, unwilling as he was
to act unkindly, even toward a devil, felt compelled to punish him by
fixing the troublesome devil on the very sentence on which he stopped,
by clasping the book. At another time the same devil appeared under
the shape of a monkey. He grinned so horribly that Dominick, in order
to get rid of him, ordered the devil-monkey to take the candle and hold
it for him until he had done reading. The poor imp did so, and held it
until it was consumed to the very end of the wick ; and, notwithstanding
his pitiful cries for mercy, the saint compelled him to hold it till his fin-
gers were burned to the bones !
Enough ! The approbation with which this book was received by the
THE INDECENCY OF THE "GOLDEN LEGEND." 79
Church, and the pecuhar sanctity attributed to it, is sufficient to show the
estimation in which veracity was held by its patrons. We may add, in
conclusion, that the finest quintessence of Boccaccio's Decameron, appears
prudery itself by comparison with the filthy realism of the Golden Legend.
We cannot regard with too much astonishment the pretensions of the
Catholic Church in seeking to convert Hindus and Buddhists to Chris-
tianity. While the " heathen" keeps to the faith of his fathers, he has at
least the one redeeming quality— that of not having apostatized for the
mere pleasure of exchanging one set of idols for another. There may be
for him some novelty in his embracing Protestantism ; for in that he gains
the advantage, at least, of Hmiting his reUgious views to their simplest
expression. But when a Buddhist has been enticed into exchanging his
Shoe Dagoon for the Slipper of the Vatican, or the eight hairs from the
head of Gautama and Buddha's tooth, which work miracles, for the locks
of a Christian saint, and a tooth of Jesus, which work far less clever
miracles, he has no cause to boast of his choice. In his address to the
Literary Society of Java, Sir T. S. Raffles is said to have narrated the fol-
lowing characteristic anecdote : " On visiting the great temple on the
hills of Nangasaki, the English commissioner was received with marked
regard and respect by the venerable patriarch of the northern provinces,
a man eighty years of age, who entertained him most sumptuously. On
showing him round the courts of the temple, one of the English officers
present heedlessly exclaimed, in surprise, ' Jesus Christus ! ' The patriarch
turning half round, with a placid smile, bowed significantly, with the
expression: ' We know your Jasus Christus ! Well, don't obtrude him
upon us in our temples, and we remain friends.' And so, with a hearty
shake of the hands, these two opposites parted." *
There is scarcely a report sent by the missionaries from India, Thibet,
and China, but laments the diabolical "obscenity" of the heathen rites,
their lamentable irapudicity ; all of which " are so strongly suggestive of
devil-worship," as des Mousseaux tells us. We can scarcely be assured
that the morality of the Pagans would be in the least improved were they
allowed a free inquiry into the life of say the psalmist-king, the author
of those sweet Psalms which are so rapturously repeated by Christians.
The. difference between David performing a phallic dance before the holy
ark — emblem of the female principle — and a Hindu Vishnavite bearing
the same emblem on his forehead, favors the former only in the eyes of
those who have studied neither the ancient faith nor their own. When a
religion which compelled David to cut off and deliver two hundred fore-
skins of his enemies before he could become the king's son-in-law (i Sam.
* '' The Mythology of the Hindus," by Charles Coleman. Japan.
80 ISIS UNVEILED.
xviii.) is accepted as a standard by Christians, they would do well not to
cast into the teeth of heathen the impudicities of their faiths. Remem-
bering the suggestive parable of Jesus, they ought to cast the beam out of
tlieir own eye before plucking at the mote in their neighbor's. The sexual
element is as marked in Christianity as in any one of the "heathen reli-
gions." Certainly, nowhere in the Vedas can be found the coarseness and
downright immodesty of language, that Hebraists now discover through-
out the Mosaic Bible.
It would profit little were we to dwell much upon subjects which have
been disposed of in such a masterly way by an anonymous author whose
work electrified England and Germany last year ; * while as regards the
particular topic under notice, we cannot do better than recommend the
scholarly writings of Dr. Inman. Albeit one-sided, and in many instan-
ces unjust to the ancient heathen. Pagan, and Jewish religions, the fads
treated in the A?icient and Pagan Christian Symbolisrn, are unimpeach-
able. Neither can we agree with some English critics who charge him
with an intent to destroy Christianity. If by Christianity is meant the ex-
ternal religious forms of worshi[), then he certainly seeks to destroy it, for in
his eyes, as well as in those of every truly religious man, who has studied
ancient exoteric faiths, and their symbology, Christianity is pure heath-
enism, and Catholicism, with its fetish-worshipping, is far worse and more
pernicious than Hinduism in its most idolatrous aspect. But while
denouncing the exoteric forms and unmasking the symbols, it is not the
religion of Christ that the author attacks, but the artificial system of the-
ology. We will allow him to illustrate the position in his own language,
and quote from his preface :
" When vampires were discovered by the acumen of any observer,"
he says, " they were, we are told, ignominiously killed, by a stake being
driven through the body ; but experience showed them to have such
tenacity of life that they rose, again and again, notwithstanding renewed
impalement, and vi<irt not ultimately laid to rest till wholly burned. In
like manner, the regenerated heathendom, which dominates over the
followers of Jesus of Nazareth, has risen again and again, after being
transfixed. Still cherished by the many, it is denounced by the few.
Amongst other accusers, I raise my voice against the Paganism which
exists so extensively in ecclesiastical Christianity, and will do my utmost
to expose the imposture. ... In a vampire story told in Thalaba, by
Southey, the resuscitated being takes the form of a dearly-beloved maiden,
and the hero is obliged to kill her with his own hand. He does so ; but,
whilst he strikes the form of the loved one, he feels sure that he slays
* "Supernatural Religion."
THE POPE FRATERNIZING WITH ISLAM. 8l
only a demon. In like manner, when I endeavor to destroy the current
heathenism, which has assumed the garb of Christianity, / do not attack
real religion* Few would accuse a workman of malignancy, who
cleanses from filth the surface of a noble statue. There may be some
who are too nice to touch a nasty subject, yet even they will rejoice when
some one else removes the dirt. Such a scavenger is wanted." f
But is it merely Pagans and heathen that the Catholics persecute,
and about whom, like Augustine, they cry to the Deity, " Oh, my God !
so do I wish Thy enemies to be slaijil" Oh, no ! their aspirations are
more ISIosaic and Cain-like than that. It is against their next of kin in
faith, against their schismatic brothers that they are now intriguing within
the walls which sheltered the murderous Borgias. The larva of the
infanticidal, parricidal, and fratricidal Popes have proved themselves fit
counsellors for the Cains of Castelfidardo and Mentana. It is now the
turn of the Slavonian Christians, the Oriental Schismatics — the Philis-
tines of the Greek Church !
His Holiness the Pope, after exhausting, in a metaphor of self-lauda-
tion, every point of assimilation between the great biblical prophets and
himself, has finally and truly compared himself with the Patriarch Jacob
"wrestling against his God." He now crowns the edifice of Catholic
piety by openly sympathizing with the Turks ! The vicegerent of God
inaugurates his infallibility by encouraging, in a true Christian spirit, the
acts of that Moslem David, the modern Bashi-Bazuk ; and it seems as
if nothing would more please his Holiness than to be presented by the
latter with several thousands of the Bulgarian or Servian " foreskins."
True to her policy to be all things to all men to promote her own inter-
ests, the Romish Church is, at this writing (1876), benevolently viewing
the Bulgarian and Servian atrocities, and, probably, manoeuvring with
Turkey against Russia. Better Islam, and the hitherto -hated Crescent
over the sepulchre of the Christian god, than the Greek Church estab-
lished at Constantinople and Jerusalem as the state religion. Like a
decrepit and toothless ex-tyrant in exile, the Vatican is eager for any
alliance that promises, if not a restoration of its own power, at least the
weakening of its rival. The axe its inquisitors once swung, it now toys
* Neither do we, if by true religion the woi'Id shall at last understand the adoration of
one Supreme, Invisible, and Unknown Deity, by works and acts, not by the profession
of vain human dogmas. But our intention is to go farther. We desire to demonstrate
that if we exclude ceremonial and fetish worship from being regarded as essential parts
of religion, then the true Christ-like principles have been exemplified, and true Chris-
tianity practiced since the days of the apostles, exclusively among Buddhists and
"heathen."
\ "Ancient Pagan and Modem Christian Symbolism," p. xvi.
6
82 ISIS UNVEILED.
with in secret, feeling its edge, and waiting, and hoping against hope. In
her time, the Popish Church has lain with strange bedfellows, but never
before now sunk to the degradation of giving her moral support to those
who for over 1200 years spat in her face, called her adherents "infidel
dogs," repudiated her teachings, and denied godhood to her God !
The press of even Catholic France is fairly aroused at this indignity,
and openly accuses the Ultramontane portion of the Catholic Church
and the Vatican of siding, during the present Eastern struggle, with the
Mahometan against the Christian. "When the Minister of Foreign
Affairs in the French Legislature spoke some mild words in favor of the
Greek Christians, he was only applauded by the liberal Catholics, and
received coldly by the Ultramontane party," says the French correspon-
dent of a New York paper.
" So pronounced was this, that M. Lemoinne, the well-known editor
of the great liberal Catholic journal, the Debats, was moved to say that
the Roman Church felt more sympathy for the Moslem than the schis-
matic, just as they preferred an infidel to the Protestant. ' There is at
bottom,' says this writer, ' a great affinity between the Syllabus and the
Koran, and between the two heads of the faithful. The two systems are
of the same nature, and are united on the common ground of a one and-
unchangeable theory.' In Italy, in like manner, the King and Liberal
Catholics are in warm sympathy with the unfortunate Christians, while
the Pope and Ultramontane faction are believed to be inclining to the
Mahometans."
The civilized world may yet expect the apparition of the materialized
Virgin Mary within the walls of the Vatican. The so often-repeated
" miracle " of Ihe Immaculate Visitor in the mediaeval ages has recently
been enacted at Lourdes, and why not once more, as a coup de grace to
all heretics, schismatics, and infidels ? The miraculous wax taper is yet
seen at Arras, the chief city of Artois ; and at every new calamity threat-
ening her beloved Church, the " Blessed Lady " appears personally, and
lights it with her own fair hands, in view of a whole " biologized " con-
gregation. This sort of "miracle," says E. Worsley, wrought by the
Roman Catholic Church, " being most certain, and never doubted of by
any." * Neither has the private correspondence with which the most
" Gracious Lady " honors her friends been doubted. There are two
precious missives from her in the archives of the Church. The first pur-
ports to be a letter in answer to one addressed to her by Ignatius. She
confirms all things learned by her correspondent from "her friend" —
* ' ' Discourses of Miracles wrought in the Roman Catholic Church ; or a full Refu-
tation of Dr. Stillingfleet's unjust Exceptions against Miracles." Octavo, 1676,
p. 64.
A LETTER FROM MARY VIRGIN. 83
meaning the Apostle John. She bids him hold fast to his vows, and adds
as an inducement : " I and John will come together and pay you a
viiitr *
Nothing was known of this unblushing fraud till the letters were pub-
lished at Pans, in 1495. By a curious accident it appeared at a time
when threatening inquiries began to be made as to the genuineness of
the fourth Synoptic. Who could doubt, after such a confirmation from
headquarters ! But the climax of effrontery was capped in 1534, when
another letter was received from the " Mediatrix," which sounds more like
the report of a lobby-agent to a brother-politician. It was written in excel-
lent Latin, and was found in the Cathedral of Messina, together with the
image to which it alludes. Its contents run as follows :
"Mary Virgin, Mother of the Redeemer of the world, to the Bishop, Clergy, and
the other faithful of Jlessuia, sendeth health and benediction from herself and son :f
"Whereas ye have been mindful of establishing the worship of me; now this is to
let you know that by so doing ye have found great favor in my sight. I have a long
time reflected with pain upon your city, which is exposed to much danger from its con-
tiguity to the fire of Etna, and I have often had words about it with my son, for he
was vexed with you because of your guilty neglect of my worship, so that he would
cot care a pin about my intercession. Now, however, that you have come to your
senses, and have happily begun to worship me, he has conferred upon me the right to
become your everlasting protectress ; but, at the same time, I warn you to mind what
you are about, and give me no cause of repenting of my kindness to you. The prayers
and festivals instituted in my honor please me tremendously {vehemetiter), and if you
faithfully persevere in these things, and provided you oppose to the utmost of your
power, the heretics which now-a-days are spreading through the world, by which both
my worship and that of the other saints, male and female, are so endangered, you shall
enjoy my perpetual protection.
" In sign of this compact, I send you down from Heaven the image of myself, cast
by celestial hands, and if ye hold it in the honor to which it is entitled, it will be an
evidence to me of your obedience and your faith. Farewell. Dated in Heaven,
whilst sitting near the throne of my son, in the month of December, of the 1534th
year from his incarnation.
"Mary Virgin."
The reader should understand that this document is no anti-Catholic
forgery. The author from whom it is taken, J says that the authenticity
of the missive "is attested by the Bishop himself, his Vicar-General,
* After this, why should the Roman Catholics object to the claims of the Spiritual-
ists? If, without proof, they believe in the " materialization " of Mary and John, for
Ignatius, how can they logically deny the materialization of Katie and John (King),
when it is attested by the careful experiments of Mr. Crookes, the English chemist, and
the cumulative testimony of a large number of witnesses?
f The " Mother of God " takes precedence therefore of God?
X See the " New Era " for July, 1875. N. Y.
84 ISIS UNVEILED.
Secretary, and six Canons of the Cathedral Church of Messina, all of
whom have signe'd that attestation with their names, and confirmed it
upon oath.
" Both the epistle and image were found upon the high altar, where
they had been placed by angels from heaven."
A Church must have reached the last stages of degradation, when
such sacrilegious trickery as this could be resorted to by its clergy, and
accepted with or without question by the people.
No ! far from the man who feels the workings of an immortal spirit
within him, be such a religion ! There never was nor ever will be a truly
philosophical mind, whether of Pagan, heathen, Jew, or Christian, but has
followed the same path of thought. Gautama-Buddha is mirrored in the
precepts of Christ ; Paul and Philo Judasus are faithful echoes of Plato ;
and Ammonias Saccas and Plotinus won their immortal fame by combin-
ing the teachings of all these grand masters of true philosophy. " Prove
all things ; hold fast that which is good," ought to be the motto of all
brothers on earth. Not so is it with the interpreters of the Bible. The
seed of the Reformation was sown on the day that, the second chapter of
The Catholic Epistle of James, jostled the eleventh chapter of the Epistle
to the Hebrews in the same New Testament. One who believes in Paul
cannot believe in James, Peter, and John. The Paulists, to remain Chris-
tians with their apostle, must withstand Peter " to the face ; " and if
Peter "was to be blamed" and was wrong, then he was not infallible.
How then can his successor (?) boast of his infallibility ? Every kingdom
divided against itself is brought to desolation ; and every house divided
against itself must fall. A plurality of masters has proved as fatal in reli-
gions as in politics. What Paul preached, was preached by every other
mystic philosopher. " Stand /aj/ therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ
hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage!"
exclaims the honest apostle-philosopher ; and adds, as if prophetically
inspired : " But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye
be not consumed one of another."
That the Neo-platonists were not always despised or accused of
demonolatry is evidenced in the adoption by the Roman Church of their
very rites and theurgy. The identical evocations and incantations of the
Pagan and Jewish Kabalist, are now repeated by the Christian exorcist,
and the theurgy of lamblichus was adopted word for word. " Distinct
as were the Platonists and Pauline Christians of the earlier centuries,"
writes Professor A. Wilder, "many of the more distinguished teachers
of the new faith were deeply tinctured with the philosophical leaven.
Synesius, the Bishop of Cyrene, was the disciple of Hypatia. St. Anthony
reiterated the theurgy of lamblichus. The Logos, or word of the Gospd
PAGAN ORIGIN OF CATHOLIC RITUAL. 8S
according to John, was a Gnostic personification. Clement of Alexandria,
Origen, and others of the fathers drank deeply from the fomitains of
philosophy. The ascetic idea which carried away the Church was like
that which was practiced by Plotinus ... all through the middle ages
there rose up men who accepted the interior doctrines which were pro-
mulgated by the renowned teacher of the Academy." *
To substantiate our accusation that the Latin Church first despoiled
the kabalists and theurgists of their magical rites and ceremonies, before
hurling anathemas upon their devoted heads, we will now translate for
the reader fragments from the forms of exorcism employed by kabalists
and Christians. The identity in phraseology, may, perhaps, disclose one
of the reasons why the Romish Church has always desired to keep the
faithful in ignorance of the meaning of her Latin prayers and ritual. Only
those directly interested in the deception have had the opportunity to
compare the rituals of the Church and the magicians. Tlie best Latin
scholars were, until a comparatively recent date, either churchmen, or
dependent upon the Church. Common people could not read Latin, and
even if they could, the reading of the books on magic was prohibited,
under the penalty of anathema and excommunication. The cunning
device of the confessional made it almost impossible to consult, even
surreptitiously, what the priests call 3. grimoire (a devil's scrawl), or Ritual
of Magic. To make assurance doubly sure, the Church began destroying
or concealing everything of the kind she could lay her hands upon.
The following are translated from the Kabalistic Ritual, and that gen-
erally known as the' Roman Ritual. The latter was promulgated in
1851 and 1852, under the sanction of Cardinal Engelbert, Archbishop of
Malines, and of the Archbishop of Paris. Speaking of it, the demonolo-
gist des Mousseaux says : "It is the ritual of Paul V., revised by the
most learned of modern Popes, by the contemporary of Voltaire, Benedict
XIV." f
Kabalistic. (Jewish and Pagan.) Roman Catholic
Exorcism of Salt. Exorcism of Salt. §
The Priest-Magician blesses the Salt, and The Priest blesses the Salt and says :
says; " Creature of Salt, \ in thee may ** Creature of Salt, I exorcise thee in the
remain the wisdom (of God) ; and may it name of the living God . , . become the
preserve from all corruption our minds and health of the soul and of the body ! Every-
* "Paul and Plato."
t See " La Magie au XlXme SiWe," p. 168.
% Creature of salt, air, water, or of any object to be enchanted or blessed, is a tech
nical word in magic, adopted by the Christian clergy.
§ "Rom. Rit.," edit, of 1851, pp. 291-296, etc., etc.
86
ISIS UNVEILED.
bodies. Through Hochmael (i^XD^n, God
of wisdom), and the power of Ruach Hoch-
mael (Spirit of the Holy Ghost) may the
Spirits of matter (bad spirits) before it
recede. . . . Amen."
Exorcism of Water {and Ashes').
" Creature of the Water, I exorcise thee
... by the three names which are Netsah,
Hod, and Jerod (kabalistic trinity), in the
beginning and in the end, by Alpha and
Omega, which are in the Spirit Azoth
(Holy Ghost, or the 'Universal Soul'), I
exorcise and adjure thee. . . . Wandering
eagle, may the Lord command thee by the
wings of the bull and his flaming sword."
(The cherub placed at the east gate of
Eden.)
Exorcism of an Elemental Spirit.
" Serpent, in the name of the Tetragram-
maton, the Lord; He commands thee, by
the angel and the lion.
"Angel of darkness, obey, and run away
with this holy (exorcised) water. Eagle in
chains, obey this sign, and retreat before
the breath. Moving serpent, crawl at my
feet, or be tortured by this sacred fire, and
evaporate before this holy incense. Let
water return to water (the elemental spirit
of water) ; let the fire burn, and the air
circulate ; let the earth return to earth by
the virtue of the Pentagi-am, which is the
Morning Star, and in the name of the
tetragrammaton which is traced in the cen-
tre of the Cross of Light. Amen."
where where thou art thrown may the un-
clean spirit be put to flight. . . . Amen.'"
Exorcism of Water.
"Creature of the water, in the name of
the Almighty God, the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost . . . be exorcised.
... I adjure thee in the name of the Lamb
. . . (the magician says bull ox ox — per
alas Tauri) of the Lamb that trod upon the
basilisk and the aspic, and who crushes
under his foot the lion and the dragon."
Exorcism of the Devil.
" O Lord, let him who carries along
with him the terror, fiee, struck in his turn
by terror and defeated. O thou, who art
the Ancient Serpent . . . tremble before
the hand of him who, having triumphed of
the tortures of hell (?) devictis geniitibus
inferni, recalled the souls to light. . . .
The more whilst (hou decay, the more terri-
ble will be thy torture ... by Him who
reigns over the living and the dead . . .
and who will judge the century by fire,
sacuhtm per ignem, etc. In the name of
the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Amen." *
It is unnecessary to try the patience of the reader any longer, although
we might multiply examples. It must not be forgotten that we have
quoted from the latest revision of the Ritual, that of 1851-2. If we were
to go back to the former one we would find a far more striking identity,
not merely of phraseology but of ceremonial form. For the purpose of
comparison we have not even availed ourselves of the ritual of ceremo-
nial magic of the Christian kabalists of the middle ages, wherein the
language modelled upon a belief in the divinity of Christ is, with the
exception of a stray expression here and there, identical with the Catholic
"Rom. Rit.," pp. 421-435.
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS KABALISTIC. 87
Ritual. * The latter, however, makes one improvement, for the originality
of which the Church should be allowed all credit. Certainly nothing so
fantastical could be found in a ritual of magic. " Give place," apostro-
phizing the " Demon," it says, " give place to Jesus Christ . . . 'CaowfiUhy,
stinking, and ferocious beast . . . dost thou rebel ? Listen and tremble,
Satan ; enemy of the faith, enemy of the human race, introducer of death
. . . root of all evil, promoter of vice, soul of envy, origin of avarice,
cause of discord, prince of homicide, whom God curses ; author of incest
and sacrilege, inventor of all obscenity, professor of the most detestable
actions, a7id Grand Master of Heretics ( / / ) {Doctor Hmreticorum ! )
What ! .' . . dost thou still stand ? Dost dare to resist, and thou knowest
that Christ, our Lord, is coming ? . . . Give place to Jesus Christ, give
place to the Holy Ghost, which, by His blessed Apostle Peter, has flung
thee down before the public, in the person of* Simon the Magician "
(te manifeste stravit in Simone mago).\
After such a shower of abuse, no devil having the shghtest feeling
of self-respect could remain in such company ; unless, indeed, he should
chance to be an Italian Liberal, or King Victor Emmanuel himself;
both of whom, thanks to Pius IX., have become anathema-proof
It really seems too bad to strip Rome of all her symbols at once ; but
justice must be done to the despoiled hierophants. Long before the
sign of the Cross was adopted as a Christian symbol, it was employed as
a secret sign of recognition among neophytes and adepts. Says Levi :
"The sign of the Cross adopted by the Christians does not belong exclu-
sively to them. It is kabalistic, and represents the oppositions and
quaternary equilibrium of the elements. We see by the occult verse of
the Pater, to which we have called attention in another work, that there
were originally two ways of making it, or, at least, two very different
formulas to express its meaning — one reserved for priests and" initiates ;
the other given to neophytes and the profane. Thus, for example, the
initiate, carrying his hand to his forehead, said : To thee ; then he added,
belong ; and continued, while carrying his hand to the breast — the king-
dom ; then, to the left shoulder — -justice ; to the right shoulder — and
mercy. Then he joined the two hands, adding : throughout the genera-
ting cycles : ' Tibi sunt Malchut, et Geburah et Chassed per ALonas' — a
sign of the Cross, absolutely and magnificently kabalistic, which the pro-
fanations of Gnosticism made the mihtant and official Church completely
lose." I
• See "Art-Magic," art. Peter d'Abano.
f "Ritual," pp. 429-433 ; see "La Magie au XlXme Siecle," pp. 171, 172.
X "Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie," vol. ii., p. 88.
88 ISIS UNVEILED.
How fantastical, therefore, is the assertion of Father Ventura, that,
while Augustine was a Manichean, a philosopher, ignorant of and refu-
sing to humble himself before the sublimity of the " grand Christian rev-
elation," he knew nothing, understood naught of God, man, or universe;
" . . .he remained poor, small, obscure, sterile, and wrote nothing, did
nothing really grand or useful." But, hardly had he become a Chris-
tian "... when his reasoning powers and intellect, enlightened at the
luminary of faith, elevated him to the most sublime heights of philosophy
and theology." And his other proposition that Augustine's genius, as a
consequence, " developed itself in all its grandeur and prodigious fecundity
... his intellect radiated with that immense splendor which, reflecting
itself in his immortal writings, has never ceased for one moment during
fourteen centuries to illuminate the Church and the world ! " *
Whatever Augustine was as a Manichean, we leave Father Ventura
to discover ; but that his accession to Christianity established an everlast-
ing enmity between theology and science is beyond doubt. While forced
to confess that " the Gentiles had possibly something divine and true in
their doctrines," he, nevertheless, declared that for their superstition,
idolatry, and pride, they had " to be detested, and, unless they improved,
to be punished by divine judgment." This furnishes the clew to the sub-
sequent policy of the Christian Church, even to our day. If the Gentiles
did not choose to come into the Church, all that was divine in their phil-
osophy should go for naught, and the divine wrath of God should be vis-
ited upon their heads. What effect this produced is succinctly stated by
Draper : " No one did more than this Father to bring science and
religion into antagonism ; it was mainly he who diverted the Bible from
its true office — a guide to purity of life — and placed it in the perilous
position of being the arbiter of human knowledge, an audacious tyranny
over the mind of man. The example once set, there was no want of
followers ; the works of the Greek philosophers were stigmatized as pro-
fane ; the transcendently glorious achievements of the Museum of Alex-
andria were hidden from sight by a cloud of ignorance, mysticism, and
unintelligible jargon, out of which there too often flashed the destroying
lightnings of ecclesiastical vengeance." f
Augustine and Cyprian \ admit that Hermes and Hostanes believed
in one true god ; the first two maintaining, as well as the two Pagans,
that he is invisible and incomprehensible, except spiritually. Moreover
we invite any man of intelligence — provided he be not a religious fanatic
— after reading fragments chosen at random from the works of Hermes
* " Conferences," by Le P^re Ventura, vol. ii., part i., p. Ivi., Preface.
\ " Conflict between Religion and Science," p. 62.
^ " De Baptismo Contra Donatistas," lib. vi., ch. xliv.
WAS "SIMON MAGUS" ST. PAUL? 89
and Augustine on the Deity, to decide which of the two gives a more
philosophical definition of the " unseen Father." We have at least one
writer of fame who is of our opinion. Draper calls the Augustinian
productions a " rhapsodical conversation" with God; an "incoherent
dream."*
Father Ventura depicts the saint as attitudinizing before an astonished
world upon " the most sublime heights of philosophy." But here steps
in again the same unprejudiced critic, who passes the following remarks
on this colossus of Patristic philosophy. "Was it for this preposterous
scheme," he asks, " this product of ignorance and audacity, that the
works of the Greek philosophers were to be given up ? It was none too
soon that the great critics who appeared at the Reformation, by compar-
ing the works of these writers with one another, brought them to their
proper level, and taught us to look upon them all with contempt." f
For such men as Plotinus, Porphyry, lambhchus, ApoUonius, and
even Simon Magus, to be accused of having formed a pact with the
Devil, whether the latter personage exist or not, is so absurd as to need
but little refutation. If Simon Magus — the most problematical of all in
an historical sense — ever existed otherwise than in the overheated fancy
of Peter and the other apostles, he was evidently no worse than any of
his adversaries. A difference in religious views, however great, is insuf-
ficient/^r se to send one person to heaven and the other to hell. Such
uncharitable and peremptory doctrines might have been taught in the
middle ages ; but it is too late now for even the Church to put forward
this traditional scarecrow. Research begins to suggest that which, if
ever verified, will bring eternal disgrace on the Church of the Apostle
Peter, whose very imposition of herself upon that disciple must be re-
garded as the most unverified and unverifiable of the assumptions of the
Catholic clergy.
The erudite author of Supernatural Religion assiduously endeavors
to prove that by Simon Magus we must understand the apostle Paul,
whose Epistles were secretly as well as openly calumniated by Peter,
and charged with containing " dysnoetic learning." The Apostle of the
Gentiles was brave, outspoken, sincere, and very learned ; the Apostle
of Circumcision, cowardly, cautious, insincere, and very ignorant. That
Paul had been, partially, at least, if not completely, initiated into the
theurgic mysteries, admits of little doubt. His language, the phraseology
so peculiar to the Greek philosophers, certain expressions used but by the
initiates, are so many sure ear-marks to that supposition. Our suspicion
has been strengthened by an able article in one of the New York peri-
* "Conflict, etc.," p. 37. \ Ibid.
go ISIS UNVEILED.
odicals, entitled Paul and Plato* in which the author puts forward one
remarkable and, for us, very precious observation. In his Epistles to the
Corinthians he shows Paul abounding with "expressions suggested by
the initiations of Sabazius and Eleusis, and the lectures of the (Greek)
philosophers. He (Paul) designates himself an idiotes — a person unskil-
ful in the Word, but not in the gnosis or philosophical learning. ' We
speak wisdom among the perfect or initiated,' he writes ; ' not the wis-
dom of this world, nor of the archons of this world, but divine wisdom
in a mystery, secret — which none of the Archons of this world knew.' " \
What else can the apostle mean by these unequivocal words, but
that he himself, as belonging to the mystcs (initiated), spoke of things
shown and explained only in the Mysteries ? The " divine wisdom in a
mystery which none of the archons of this world knew," has evidendy
some direct reference to the basileus of the Eleusinian initiation who
did know. The basileus belonged to the staff of the great hierophant,
and was an archon of Athens ; and as such was one of the chief mystce,
belonging to the interior Mysteries, to which a very select and small
number obtained an entrance. J The magistrates supervising the Eleu-
sinians were called archons.
Another proof that Paul belonged to the circle of the " Initiates" lies
in the following fact. The apostle had his head shorn at Cenchrea
(where Lucius, Afuleius, was initiated) because " he had a vow." The
fiazars — or set apart — as we see in the Jewish Scriptures, had to cut
their hair which they wore long, and which " no razor touched " at any
other time, and sacrifice it on the altar of initiation. And the nazars
were a class of Chaldean theurgists. We will show further that Jesus
belonged to this class.
Paul declares that : " According to the grace of God which is given
unto me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation." §
This expression, master-builder, used only ofice in the whole Bible,
and by Paul, may be considered as a whole revelation. In the Mysteries,
the third part of the sacred rites was called Epopteia, or revelation, recep-
tion into the secrets. In substance it means that stage of divine clairvoy-
ance when everything pertaining to this earth disappears, and earthly sight
is paralyzed, and the soul is united free and pure with its Spirit, or God.
But the real significance of the word is " overseeing," from o7rro/xai—
I see myself. In Sanscrit the word evdpto has the same meaning,
* " Paul and Plato," by A. Wilder, editor of " The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mys"
teries," of Thomas Taylor.
\ " Paul and Plato." % See Taylor's " Eleus. and Bacchic Myst."
§ I Corin., iii. lo.
PETER S HATRED OF PAUL. 91
as well as to obtain. * The word epopteia is a compound one, from E;ri
— upon, and 0-wTOfx.a.i — to look, or an overseer, an inspector — also used
for a master-builder. The title of master-mason, in Freemasonry, is
derived from this, in the sense used in the Mysteries. Therefore, when
Paul entitles himself a " master-builder," he is using a word pre-eminently
kabalistic, theurgic, and masonic, and one which no other apostle uses.
He thus declares himself an adept, having the right to initiate others.
If we search in this direction, with those sure guides, the Grecian
Mysteries and the Kabala, before us, it will be easy to find the secret reason
why Paul was so persecuted and hated by Peter, John, and James. The
author of the Revelation was a Jewish kabalist pur sang, with all the
hatred inherited by him from his forefathers toward the Mysteries, f His
jealousy during the life of Jesus extended even to Peter ; and it is but
after the death of their common master that we see the two apostles —
the former of whom wore the Mitre and the Petaloon of the Jewish
Rabbis — preach so zealously the rite of circumcision. In the eyes of
Peter, Paul, who had humiliated him, and whom he felt so much his
superior in "Greek learning" and philosophy, must have naturally
appeared as a magician, a man polluted with the " Gnosis" with the
" wisdom " of the Greek Mysteries — hence, perhaps, " Simon \ the Ma-
gician."
As to Peter, biblical criticism has shown before now that he had
probably no more to do with the foundation of the Latin Church at
Rome, than to furnish the pretext so readily seized upon by the cunning
Irenasus to benefit this Church with the new name of the apostle —
Petra or Kiffa, a name which allowed so readily, by an easy play upon
words, to connect it with Petroma, the double set of stone tablets used
* In its most extensive meaning, the Sanscrit word has the same literal sense as the
Greek term ; both imply " revelation," by no human agent, but through the " receiving
of the sacred drink." In India the initiated received the " Soma," sacred drink, which
helped to liberate his soul from the body ; and in the Eleusinian Mysteries it was the
sacred drink offered at the Epopteia. The Grecian Mysteries are wholly derived from
the Brahmanical Vedic rites, and the latter from the ante-vedic religious Mysteries —
primitive Buddhist philosophy.
f It is needless to state that the Gospel according to John was not written by John
but by a Platonist or a Gnostic belonging to the Neo-platonic school.
:j; The fact that Peter persecuted the -'Apostle to the Gentiles," under that name,
does not necessarily imply that there was no Simon Magus individually distinct from
Paul. It may have become a generic name of abuse. Theodoret and Chrysostom, the
earliest and most prolific commentators on the Gnosticism of those days, seem actually
to make of Simon a rival of Paul, and to state that between them passed frequent mes-
sages. The former, as a diligent propagandist of what Paul terms the " antitheses of
the Gnosis" (ist Epistle to Timothy), must have been a sore thorn in the side of the
apostle. There are sufficient proofs of the actual existence of Simon Magus.
92 ISIS UNVEILED.
by the hierophant at the initiations, during the final Mystery. In this,
perhaps, hes concealed the whole secret of the claims of the Vatican.
As Professor Wilder happily suggests : "In the Oriental countries the
designation ins, Peter (in Phoenician and Chaldaic, an interpreter)
appears to have been the title of this personage (the hierophant). . . .
There is in these facts some reminder of the peculiar ciixumstances of the
Mosaic Law . . . and also of the claim of the Pope to be the successor
of Peter, the hierophant or interpreter of the Christian religion." *
As such, we must concede to him, to some extent, the right to be
such an interpreter. The Latin Church has faithfully preserved in
symbols, rites, ceremonies, architecture, and even in the very dress of her
clergy, the tradition of the Pagan worship — of the public or exoteric
ceremonies, we should add ; otherwise her dogmas would embody more
sense and contain less blasphemy against the majesty of the Supreme
and Invisible God.
An inscription found on the coffin of Queen Mentuhept, of the elev-
enth dynasty (2250 B.C.), now proved to have been transcribed from the
seventeenth chapter of the Book of the Dead (dating not later than
4500 B.C.), is more than suggestive. This monumental text contains a
group of hieroglyphics, which, when interpreted, read thus :
PTR. RF. SU.
Peter- ref- su.
Baron Bunsen shows this sacred formulary mixed up with a whole
series of glosses and various interpretations on a monument forty cen-
turies old. " This is identical with saying that the record (the true inter-
pretation) was at that time no longer intelligible. . . . We beg our
readers to understand," he adds, " that a sacred text, a hymn, containing
the words of a departed spirit, existed in such a state about 4,000
years ago ... as to be all but unintelligible to royal scribes." f
That it was unintelligible to the unitiated among the latter is as well
proved by the confused and contradictory glossaries, as that it- was a
" mystery "-word, known to the hierophants of the sanctuaries, and, more-
over, a word chosen by Jesus, to designate the office assigned by him to
one of his apostles. This word, PTR, was partially interpreted, owing
to another word similarly written in another group of hieroglyphics, on a
* " Introd. to Eleus. and Bacchic Mysteries," p. x. Had we not trustworthy kabal-
istic tradition to rely upon, we might be, perhaps, forced to question whether the author-
ship of the Revelation is to be ascribed to the apostle of tliat name. He seems to
be termed John tlie Theologist.
\ Bunsen : " Egypt's Place in Universal History," vol. v., p. 90.
THE TRUE INTERPRETATION OF " PETRUM." 93
Stele, the sign used for it being an opened eye. * Bimsen mentions as
another explanation of PTR — " to show." " It appears to me," he re-
marks, " that oiir PTR is literally the old Aramaic and Hebrtw ' Patar,'
which occurs in the history of Joseph as the specific word for interpre-
ting; whence also Pitriim is the term for interpretation of a text, a
dream." f In a manuscript of the first century, a combination of the
Demotic and Greek texts, J and most probably one of the few which
miraculously escaped the Christian vandalism of the second and third
centuries, when all such precious manuscripts were burned as magical,
we find occurring in several places a phrase, which, perhaps, may throw
some light upon this question. One of the principal heroes of the manu-
script, who is constantly referred to as " the Judean Illmninator " or
Initiate, TeXeiior^s, is made to communicate but with his Patar ; the
latter being written in Chaldaic characters. Once the latter word is
coupled with the name Shimeon. Several times, the " Illuminator," who
rarely breaks his contemplative solitude, is shown inhabiting a KpjW??
(cave), and teaching the multitudes of eager scholars standing outside, not
orally, but through this Patar. The latter receives the words of wisdom
by applying his ear to a circular hole in a partition which conceals the
teacher from the listeners, and then conveys them, with explanations and
glossaries, to the crowd. This, with a slight change, was the method
used by Pythagoras, who, as we know, never allowed his neophytes to
see him during the years of probation, but instructed them from behind
a curtain in his cave.
But, whether the " Illuminator " of the GrEeco-Deraotic manuscript
is identical with Jesus or not, the fact remains, that we find him selecting
a " mystery "-appellation for one who is made to appear later by the
Catholic Church as the janitor of the Kingdom of Heaven and the inter-
preter of Christ's will. The word Patar or Peter locates both master and
disciple in the circle of initiation, and connects them with the " Secret
Doctrine." The great hierophant of the ancient Mysteries never allowed
the candidates to see or hear him personally. He was the Deus-ex-Ma-
china, the presiding but invisible Deity, uttering his will and instructions
through a second party ; and 2,000 years later, we discover that the
Dalai-Lamas of Thibet had been following for centuries the same tradition-
al programme during the most important religious mysteries of lamaism.
* See de Rouge : " Stele," p. 44 ; Ptar (videus) is interpreted on it " to appear,"
with a sign of interrogation after it — tlie usual mark of scientific perplexity. In Bunsen's
fifth volume of "' Egypte," the interpretation following is " Illuminator," which is more
correct.
f Bunsen's " Egypt," vol. v., p. 90.
\ It is the property of a mystic whom we met in Syria.
94 ISIS UNVEILED.
If Jesus knew the secret meaning of the title bestowed by him on Simon,
then he must have been initiated ; otherwise he could not have learned
it ; and if he was an initiate of either the Pythagorean Essenes, the Chal-
dean Magi, or the Egyptian Priests, then the doctrine taught by him was
but a portion of the ' Secret Doctrine " taught by the Pagan hierophants
to the few select adepts admitted within the sacred adyta.
But we will discuss this question further on. For the present we will
endeavor to briefly indicate the extraordinary similarity — or rather iden-
tity, we should say — of rites and ceremonial dress of the Christian clergy
with that of the old Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, and
other Pagans of the hoary antiquity.
If we would find the model of the Papal tiara, we must search the
annals of the ancient Assyrian tablets. We invite the reader to give his
attention to Dr. Inman's illustrated work. Ancient Faga?i and Modern
Christian Symbolism. On page sixty-four, he will readily recognize the
head-gear of the successor of St. Peter in the coiffure worn by gods or
angels in ancient Assyria, " where it appears crowned by an emblem of
the male trinity " (the Christian Cross). " We may mention, in passing,"
adds Dr. Inman, " that, as the Romanists adopted the mitre and the
tiara from ' the cursed brood of Ham,' so they adopted the Episcopalian
crook from the augurs of Etruria, and the artistic form with which they
clothe their angels from the painters and urn-makers of Magna Grecia and
Central Italy."
Would we push our inquiries farther, and seek to ascertain as much
in relation to the nimbus and the tonsure of the Catholic priest and
monk ? * We shall find undeniable proofs that they are solar emblems.
Knight, in his Old England Pictorially Illustrated, gives a drawing by
St. Augustine, representing an ancient Christian bishop, in a dress prob-
ably identical with that worn by the great " saint " himself 'Y'he pallium,
or the ancient stole of the bishop, is the feminine sign when worn by a
priest in worship. On St. Augustine's picture it is bedecked with Bud-
dhistic crosses, and in its whole appearance it is a representation of the
Egyptian X (^au), assuming slightly the figure of the letter Y- "jf^^s
lower end is the mark of the masculine triad," says Inman; "the right
hand (of the figure) has the forefinger extended, like the Assyrian priests
while doing homage to the grove. . . . When a male dons the pallium in
worship, he becomes the representative of the trinity in the unity, the
arba, or mystic four." f
"Immaculate is our Lady Isis, " is the legend around an engraving
* The Priests of Isis were tonsured.
f See " Ancient Faiths," vol. ii., pp. 915-918.
CATHOLIC BELLS FROM THE BUDDHIST PAGODAS. 95
of Serapis and Isis, described by King, in The Gnostics and their Re-
mains, 'H KYPIA ICIC ArNH "... the very terms applied afterwards to
that personage (the Virgin Mary) who succeeded to her form, tftles, sym-
bols, rites, and ceremonies. . . . Thus, her devotees carried into the new
priesthood the former badges of their profession, the obligation to celi-
bacy, the tonsure, and the surplice, omitting, unfortunately, the frequent
ablutions prescribed by the ancient creed." "The 'Black Virgins,' so
highly reverenced in certain French cathedrals . . . proved, when at last
critically examined, basalt figures of Isis ! " *
Before the shrine of Jupiter Amnion were suspended tinkling bells,
from the sound of whose chiming the priests gathered the auguries ; "A
golden bell and a pomegranate . . . round about the hem of the robe,"
was the result with the Mosaic Jews. But in the Buddhistic system, dur-
ing the religious services, the gods of the Deva Loka are always invoked,
and invited to descend upon the altars by the ringing of bells suspend-
ed in the pagodas. The bell of the sacred table of Siva at Kuhama is
described in Kailasa, and every Buddhist vihara and lamasery has its
bells.
We thus see that the bells used by Christians come to them directly
from the Buddhist Thibetans and Chinese. The beads and rosaries have
the same origin, and have been used by Buddhist monks for over 2,300
years. The Linghams in the Hindu temples are ornamented upon certain
days with large berries, from a tree sacred to Mahadeva, which are strung
into rosaries. The title of " nun " is an Egyptian word, and had with them
the actual meaning ; the Christians did not even take the trouble of trans-
lating the word Nonna. The aureole of the saints was used by the ante-
diluvian artists of Babylonia, whenever they desired to honor or deify a
mortal's head. In a celebrated picture in Moore's Hindoo Pantheon, en-
tided, " Christna nursed by Devaki, from a highly-finished picture," the
Hindu Virgin is represented as seated on a lounge and nursing Christna.
The hair brushed back, the long veil, and the golden aureole around the
Virgin's head, as well as around that of the Hindu Saviour, are striking.
No Catholic, well versed as he might be in the mysterious symbolism
of iconology, would hesitate for a moment to worship at that shrine the
Virgin JMary, the mother of his God ! " f In Indur Subba, the south
entrance of the Caves of Ellora, may be seen to this day the figure of
Indra's wife, Indranee, sitting with her infant son-god, pointing the finger
to heaven with the same gesture as the Italian Madonna and child.
In Pagan and Christian Symbolism, the author gives a figure from a
* " The Gnostics and their Remains,'' p. 71.
f See illustration in Inman's "Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,"
p. 27.
96 ISIS UNVEILED.
mediasval woodcut — the like of which we have seen by dozens in old
psalters— in which the Virgin Mary, with her infant, is represented as
the Queen of Heaven, on the crescent moon, emblem of virginity.
'• Being before the sun, she almost eclipses its light. Than this, nothing
could more completely identify the Christian mother and child with Isis
and Horus, Ishtar, Venus, Juno, and a host of other Pagan goddesses,
who have been called 'Queen of Heaven,' 'Queen of the Universe,'
' Mother of God, ' Spouse of God,' ' the Celestial Virgin,' ' the Heavenly
Peace-Maker,' etc." *
Such pictures are not purely astronomical. They represent the male
god and the female goddess, as the sun and moon in conjunction, "the
union of the triad with the unit." The horns of the cow on the head of
Isis have the same significance.
And so above, below, outside, and inside, the Christian Church, in
the priestly garments, and the religious rites, we recognize the stamp of
exoteric heathenism. On no subject within the wide range of human
knowledge, has the world been more blinded or deceived with such per-
sistent misrepresentation as on that of antiquity. Its hoary past and its
religious faiths have been misrepresented and trampled under the feet of
its successors. Its hierophants and prophets, mystae and epoptae, f of the
once sacred adyta of the temple shown as demoniacs and devil-worshippers.
Donned in the despoiled garments of the victim, the Christian priest now
anathematizes the latter with rites and ceremonies which he has learned
from the theurgists themselves. The Mosaic Bible is used as a weapon
against the people who furnished it. The heathen philosopher is cursed
under the very roof which has witnessed his initiation ; and the " monkey
of God" (i. e., the devil of Tertullian), "the originator and founder of
magical theurgy, the science of illusions and lies, whose father and author
is the demon," is exorcised with holy water by the hand which holds the
identical lituus\ with which the ancient augur, after a solemn prayer,
used to determine the regions of heaven, and evoke, in the name of the
HIGHEST, the minor god (now termed the Devil), who unveiled to his eyes
futurity, and enabled him to prophesy ! On the part of the Christians
and the clergy it is nothing but shameful ignorance, prejudice, and that
contemptible pride so boldly denounced by one of their own reverend
ministers, T. Gross, § which rails against all investigation " as a useless
or a criminal labor, when it must be feared that they will result in die
overthrow of preestablished systems of faith." On the part of the schol-
ars it is the same apprehension of the possible necessity of having to
* Ibid., p. 76. f Initiates and seers.
X The augur's, and now bishop's, pastoral crook. § " Tlie Heathen Religion."
JUSTIN martyr's confession ABOUT THEURGIC AMULETS. 9/
modify some of their erroneously-established theories of science. " Noth-
ing but such pitiable prejudice," says Gross, " can have thus misrepre-
sented the theology of heathenism, and distorted — nay, caricatured — its
forms of religious worship. It is time that posterity should raise its voice
in vindication of violated truth, and that the present age should learn a
little of that common sense of which it boasts with as much self-compla-
cency as if the prerogative of reason was the birthright only of modern
times."
All this gives a sure clew to the real cause of the hatred felt by the
early and mediaeval Christian toward his Pagan brother and dangerous
rival. We hate but what we fear. The Christian thaumaturgist once
having broken all association with the Mysteries of the temples and with
" these schools so renowned for magic," described by St. Hilarion,* could
certainly expect but little to rival the Pagan wonder-workers. No
apostle, with the exception perhaps of healing by mesmeric power, has
ever equalled Apollonius of Tyana ; and the scandal created among the
apostles by the miracle-doing Simon Magus, is too notorious to be re-
peated here again. " How is it," asks Justin Martyr, in evident dismay,
"how is it that the talismans of Apollonius (the reXecr/xaTa) have power
in certain members of creation, for they prevent, as we see, the fury of
the waves, and the violence of the winds, and the attacks of wild beasts ;
and whilst our Lord's miracles are preserved by tradition alone, those of
Apollonius are most numerous, and actually manifested in present facts,
so as to lead astray all beholders ? " f This perplexed martyr solves the
problem by attributing very correctly the efficacy and potency of the
charms used by Apollonius to his profound knowledge of the sympathies
and antipathies (or repugnances) of nature.
Unable to deny the evident superiority of their enemies' powers, the
fathers had recourse to the old but ever successful method — that of
slander. They honored the theurgists with the same insinuating calumny
that had been resorted to by the Pharisees against Jesus. "Thou hast a
daemon," the elders of the Jewish Synagogue had said to him. " Thou
hast the Devil," repeated the cunning fathers, with equal truth, ad-
dressing the Pagan thaumaturgist ; and the widely-bruited charge, erected
later into an article of faith, won the day.
But the modern heirs of these ecclesiastical falsifiers, who charge
magic, spiritualism, and even magnetism with being produced by a demon,
forget or perhaps never read the classics. None of our bigots has ever
looked with more scorn on the abuses of magic than did the true initiate
* " Pferes du Desert d'Orient," vol. ii., p. 283.
f Justin Martyr : "Quaest.," xxiv.
7
98 ISIS UNVEILED.
of old. No modern or even medieval law could be more severe than
that of the hierophant. True, he had more discrimination, charity, and
justice, than the Christian clergy ; for while banishing the "unconscious"
sorcerer, the person troubled with a demon, from within the sacred pre-
cincts of the adyta, the priests, instead of mercilessly burning him, took
care of the unfortunate "possessed one." Having hospitals expressly
for that purpose in the neighborhood of temples, the ancient " medium,"
if obsessed, was taken care of and restored to health. But with one
who had, by conscious witchcraft, acquired powers dangerous to his fellow-
creatures, the priests of old were as severe as justice herself. " Any per-
son accidentally guilty of homicide, or of any crime, or convicted of
'untchcraft, was excluded from the Eleusinian Mysteries."* And so were
they from all others. This law, mentioned by all writers on the ancient
initiation, speaks for itself. The claim of Augustine, that all the expla-
nations given by the Neo-platonists were invented by themselves is absurd.
For nearly every ceremony in their true and successive order is given by
Plato himself, in a more or less covered way. The Mysteries are as old
as the world, and one well versed in the esoteric mythologies of various
nations can trace them back to the days of the ante-Vedic period in
India. A condition of the strictest virtue and purity is required from the
Vatou, or candidate in India before he can become an initiate, whether
he aims to be a simple fakir, a Purohita (public priest) or a Sannyasi,
a saint of the second degree of initiation, the most holy as the most
revered of them all. After having conquered, in the terrible trials pre-
hminary to admittance to the inner temple in the subterranean crypts of
his pagoda, the sannyasi passes the rest of his life in the temple, prac-
ticing the eighty-four rules and ten virtues prescribed to the Yogis.
" No one who has not practiced, during his whole life, the ten virtues
which the divine Manu makes incumbent as a duty, can be initiated into
the Mysteries of the council," say the Hindu books of initiation.
These virtues are : " Resignation ; the act of rendering good for evil ;
temperance ; probity ; purity ; chastity ; repression of the physical
senses ; the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures ; that of the Superior
soul (spirit) ; worship of truth ; abstinence from anger." These virtues
must alone direct the life of a true Yogi. " No unworthy adept ought
to defile the ranks of the holy initiates by his presence for twenty-four
hours." The adept becomes guilty after having once broken any one
of these vows. Surely the exercise of such virtues is inconsistent with
the idea one has of ^«'//-worship and lasciviousness of purpose !
And now we will try to give a clear insight into one of the chief ob-
* See Taylor's " Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries ;" Porphyry and others.
THE WHISPERED SECRETS OF INITIATION. 99
jccts of this work. What we desire to prove is, that underlying every
ancient popular religion was the same ancient wisdom-doctrine, one and
identical, professed and practiced by the initiates of every country,
who alone were aware of its existence and importance. To ascertain
its origin, and the precise age in which it was matured, is now beyond
human possibility. A single glance, however, is enough to assure one
that it could not have attained the marvellous perfection in which we
find it pictured to us in the relics of- the various esoteric systems, except
after a succession of ages. A philosophy so profound, a moral code so
ennobling, and practical results so conclusive and so uniformly demon-
strable is not the growth of a generation, or even a single epoch. Fact
must have been piled upon fact, deduction upon deduction, science have
begotten science, and myriads of the brightest human intellects have re-
flected upon the laws of nature, before this ancient doctrine had taken con-
crete shape. The proofs of this identity of fundamental doctrine in the
old religions are found in the prevalence of a system of initiation ; in
the secret sacerdotal castes who had the guardianship of mystical words
of power, and a public display of a phenomenal control over natural
forces, indicating association with preterhuman beings. Every approach
to the Mysteries of all these nations was guarded with the same jealous
care, and in all, the penalty of death was inflicted upon initiates of any
degree who divulged the secrets entrusted to them. We have seen that
such was the case in the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, among the
Chaldean Magi, and the Egyptian hierophants ; while with the Hindus,
from whom they were all derived, the same rule has prevailed from time im-
memorial. We are left in no doubt upon this point ; for the Agrushada
Parikshai says explicitly, " Every initiate, to whatever degree he may
belong, who reveals the great sacred formula, must be put to death."
Naturally enough, this same extreme penalty was prescribed in all the
multifarious sects and brotherhoods which at different periods have sprung
from the ancient stock. We find it with the early Essenes, Gnostics,
theurgic Neo-platonists, and medieval philosophers ; and in our day, even
ihe Masons perpetuate the memory of the old obligations in the penalties
of throat-cutting, dismemberment, and disemboweling, with which the
candidate is threatened. As the Masonic "master's word" is communi-
cated only at " low breath," so the selfsame precaution is prescribed in
the Chaldean Book of Numbers and the Jewish Mercaba. When initiated,
the neophyte was led by an ancient to a secluded spot, and there the
latter whispered in his ear the great secret.* The .A-Eason swears, under
the most fricrhtful penalties, that he will not communicate the secrets of
* Franck : " Die Kabbala."
100 ISIS UNVEILED.
any degree " to a brother of an inferior degree ; " and the Agrushada
Parikshai says : " Any initiate of the third degree who reveals before
the prescribed time, to the initiates of the second degree, the superior
truths, must be put to death." Again, the Masonic apprentice consents
to have his " tongue torn out by the roots " if he divulge anything to a
profane ; and in the Hindu books of initiation, the same Agrushada
Parikshai, we find that any initiate of the first degree (the lowest) who
betrays the secrets of his initiation, to members of other castes, for whom
the science should be a closed book, must have " \i\% tongue cut out " and
■juffer other mutilations.
As we proceed, we will point out the evidences of this identity of
vows, formulas, rites, and doctrines, between the ancient faiths. We will
also show that not only their memory is still preserved in India, but also
that the Secret Association is still alive and as active as ever. That, after
reading what we have to say, it may be inferred that the chief pontiff and
hierophant, the Brahmdtma, is still accessible to those " who know,"
though perhaps recognized by another name ; and that the ramifications
of his influence extend throughout the world. But we will now return
again to the early Christian period.
As though he were not aware that there was any esoteric significance
to the exoteric symbols, and that the Mysteries themselves were composed
of two parts, the lesser at Agrse, and the higher ones at Eleusinia, Cle-
mens Alexandrinus, with a rancorous bigotry that one might expect from
a renegade Neo-platonist, but is astonished to find in this generally honest
and learned Father, stigmatized the Mysteries as indecent and diabolical.
Whatever were the rites enacted among the neophytes before they passed
to a higher form of instruction ; however misunderstood were the trials
of Katliarsis or purification, during which they were submitted to every
kind of probation ; and however much the immaterial or physical aspect
night have led to calumny, it is but wicked prejudice which can compel
a person to say that under this external meaning there was not a far
deeper and spiritual significance.
It is positively absurd to judge the ancients from our own stand-
point of propriety and virtue. And most assuredly it is not for the Church
— which now stands accused by all the modern symbologists of having
adopted precisely these same emblems in their coarsest aspect, and feels
lierself powerless to refute the accusations — to throw the stone at those
who were her models. When men like Pythagoras, Plato, and lambli-
chus, renowned for their severe morality, took part in the Mysteries, and
spoke of them with veneration, it ill behooves our modern critics to judge
them so rashly upon their merely external aspect. laniblichus explains
the worst ; and his explanation, for an unprejudiced mind, ought to be
THE MYSTERIES ENNOBLING IN TENDENCY. lOI
perfectly plausible. " Exhibitions of this kind," he says, "in the Myste-
ries were designed to free us from licentious passions, by gratifying the
sight, and at the same time vanquishing all evil thought, through the awfiu
ja/zrfZ/y with which these rites were accompanied."* "The wisest and
best men in the Pagan world," adds Dr. Warburton, " are unanimous in
this, that the Mysteries were instituted pure, and proposed the noblest
ends by the worthiest means." f
In these celebrated rites, although persons of both sexes and all
classes were allowed to take a part, and a participation in them was even
obligatory, very few indeed attained the higher and final initiation. The
gradation of the Mysteries is given us by Proclus in the fourth book of his
Theology of Plato. " The perfective rite T^ken), precedes in order the -
initiation — -Mtiesis — and the initiation, Epopteia, or the final apocal3'pse
(revelation)." Theon of Smyrna, in Mathematica, also divides the mys-
tic rites into five parts : " the first of which is the previous purification ;
for neither are the Mysteries communicated to all who are willing to re-
ceive them ; . . . there are certain persons who are prevented by the
voice of the crier (lojpvf) . . . since it is necessary that such as are not
expelled from the Mysteries should first be refined by certain purifications
which the reception of the sacred rites succeeds. The third part is de-
nominated epopteia or reception. And the fourth, which is the end and
design of the revelation, is the binding of the head and fixing of the
crowns \ . . . whether after this he (the initiated person) becomes . . .
an hierophant or sustains some other ])art of the sacerdotal office. But
the fifth, which is produced from all these, is friendship and interior
communion with God." And this was the last and most awful of all the
Mysteries.
There are writers who have often wondered at the meaning of tliis
claim to a " friendship and. interior communion with God." Christian
authors have denied the pretensions of the " Pagans" to such " commu-
nion," affirming that only Christian saints were and are capable of enjoy-
ing it ; materialistic skeptics have altogether scoffed at the idea of both.
After long ages of religious materialism and spiritual stagnation, it has
most certainly become difficult if not altogether impossible to substantiate
the claims of either party. The old Greeks, who had once crowded
* "Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians."
f " Divine Legation of Moses ; " The " Eleusinian Mysteries " as quoted by Thos.
Taylor.
\ This expression must not be understood literally ; for as in the initiation of certain
Brotherhoods it has a secret meaning, hinted at by Pythagoras, when he describes his
feelings after the initiation and tells that he was crowned by the gods in whose pres-
ence he had drunk "the waters of life " — in Hindu, d-bi-hay&t, fount of life.
I03 ISIS UNVEILED.
around the Agora of Athens, with its altar to the " Unknown God," are
no more ; and their descendants firmly beheve that they have found the
" Unknown " in the Jewish Jehova. The divine ecstasies of the early
Christians have made room for visions of a more modern character, in
perfect keeping with progress and civilization. The " Son of man " ap-
pearing to the rapt vision of the ancient Christian as coming from the
seventh heaven, in a cloud of glory, and surrounded with angels and
winged seraphim, has made room for a more prosaic and at the same
time more business-like Jesus. The latter is now shown as making morn-
ing calls upon Mary and Martha in Bethany ; as seating himself on " the
ottomaii" with the younger sister, a lover of "ethics," while Martha goes
off to the kitchen to cook. Anon the heated fancy of a blasphemous
Brooklyn preacher and harlequin, the Reverend Dr. Talmage, makes us
see her rushing back " with besweated brow, a pitcher in one hand and
the tongs in the other . . . into the presence of Christ," and blowing him
up for not caring that her sister hath left her " to serve alone."*
From the birth of the solemn and majestic conception of the unre-
vealed Deity of the ancient adepts to such caricatured descriptions of
him who died an the Cross for his philanthropic devotion to humanity,
long centuries have intervened, and their heavy tread seems to have
almost entirely obliterated all sense of a spiritual religion from the hearts
of his professed followers. No wonder then, that the sentence of Proclus
is no longer understood by the Christians, and is rejected as a "vagary"
by the materialists, who, in their negation, are less blasphemous and
atheistical than many of the reverends and members of the churches.
But, although the Greek epopiai are no more, we have now, in our own
age, a people far more ancient than the oldest Hellenes, who practice
the so-called " preterhuman " gifts to the same extent as did their ances-
tors far earlier than the days of Troy. It is to this people that we draw
the attention of the psychologist and philosopher.
One need not go very deep into the literature of the Orientalists to
become convinced that in most cases they do not even suspect that in
* This original and very long sermon was preached in a church at Brooklyn, N. Y. ,
on the 15th day of April, 1877. On the following morning, the reverend orator was
called in the " Sun" a gibbering charlatan ; but this deserved epithet will not prevent
other reverend buffoons doing the same and everi worse. And this is the religion of
Christ ! Far better disbelieve in him altogether than caricature one's God in such a
manner. We heartily applaud the " Sun" for the following views : "And then when
Talmage makes Christ say to Martha in the tantrums : ' Don't worry, but sit down on
this ottoman,' he adds the climax to a scene that the inspired writers had nothing to
say about. Talmage's buffoonery is going too far. If he were the worst heretic in
the land, instead of being straight in his orthodoxy, he would not do so much evil to
religion as he does by his familiar blasphemies."
THE HINDU DEMI-GODS OF THE THIRD DEGREE. 103
the arcane philosophy of India there are deptlis whicli they have not
sounded, and cannot sound, for they pass on without perceiving them-
There is a pervading tone of conscious superiority, a ring of cotitempt in
the treatment of Hindu metaphysics, as thougli the European mind is
alone enlightened enough to polish the rough diamond of the old San-
scrit writers, and separate right from wrong for the benefit of their de-
scendants. We see them disputing over the external forms of expression
without a conception of the great vital truths these hide from the profane
view.
■'As a rule, the Brahmans," says JacoUiot, "rarely go beyond the
class of grihesta [priests of the vulgar castes] and piirahita [exorcisers,
divines, prophets, and evocators of spirits]. And yet, we shall see . . .
once that we have touched upon the question and study of manifestations
and phenomena, that these initiates of the first degree (the lowest) at-
tribute to themselves, and in appearance possess faculties developed to a
degree which has never been equalled in Europe. As to the initiates of
the second and especially of the third category, they pretend to be
enabled to ignore time, space, and to command life and death." *
Such initiates as these M. Jacolliot did not meet ; for, as he says him-
self, they only appear on the most solemn occasions, and when the faith
of the multitudes has to be strengthened by phenomena of a superior
order. " They are never seen, either in the neighborhood of, or even in-
side the temples, except at the grand quinquennial festival of the fire.
On that occasion, they appear about the middle of the night, on a plat-
form erected in the centre of the sacred lake, like so many phantoms,
and by their conjurations they illumine the space. A fiery column of
light ascends from around them, rushing from earth to heaven. Unfa-
miliar sounds vibrate through the air, and five or six hundred thousand
Hindus, gathered from every part of India to contemplate these demi-
gods, throw themselves with their faces buried in the dust, invoking the
souls of their ancestors." f
Let any impartial person read the Spiritisme dans le Afonde, and he
cannot believe that this "implacable rationalist," as Jacolliot takes pride
in terming himself, said one word more than is warranted by what he had
seen. His statements support and are corroborated by those of other
skeptics. As a rule, the missionaries, even after passing half a lifetime
in the country of " devil-worship," as they call India, either disingenu-
ously deny altogether what they cannot help knowing to be true, or
ridiculously attribute phenomena to this power of the Devil, that outrival
the " miracles " of the apostolic ages. And what do we see this French
* " Le Spiritisme dans le Monde," p. 6S. f Ibid., pp. 78, 79.
104 ISIS UNVEILED.
author, notwithstanding his incorrigible rationalism, forced to admit,
after having narrated the greatest wonders? Watch the fakirs as he
would, he is compelled to bear the strongest testimony to their perfect
honesty in the matter of their miraculous phenomena. " Never," he
says, " have we succeeded in detecting a single one in the act of deceit."
One fact should be noted by all who, without having been in India, still
fancy they are clever enough to expose the fraud oi pretended magicians.
This skilled and cool observer, this redoubtable materialist, after his
long sojourn in India, affirms, "We unhesitatingly avow that we have not
met, either in India or in Ceylon, a single European, even among the old-
est residents, who has been able to indicate the means employed by these
devotees for the production of these phenomena ! "
And how should they ? Does not this zealous Orientalist confess to
us that even he, who had every available means at hand to learn many of
their rites and doctrines at first hand, failed in his attempts to make the
Brahmans explain to him their secrets. " All that our most diligent inqui-
ries of the Pourohitas could elicit from them respecting the acts of their
superiors (the invisible initiates of the temples), amounts to very little."
And again, speaking of one of the books, he confesses that, while purport-
ing to reveal all that is desirable to know, it " falls back into mysterious
formulas, in combinations of magical and occult letters, the secret of
which it has been impossible for us to penetrate," etc.
The fakirs, although they can never reach beyond the first degree of
initiation, are, notwithstanding, the only agents between the living world
and the " silent brothers," or those initiates who never cross the thresh-
olds of their sacred dwellings. The Fukara-Yogis belong to the tem-
ples, and who knows but these cenobites of the sanctuary have far more
to do with the psychological phenomena which attend the fakirs, and
have been so graphically described by Jacolliot, than the Pitris them-
selves? Who can tell but that the fluidic spectre of the ancient Brahman
seen by Jacolliot was the Scin-lecca, the spiritual double, of one of these
mysterious sannyasi ?
Although the story has been translated and commented upon by Pro-
fessor Perty, of Geneva, still we will venture to give it in JacolHot's own
words : " A moment after tlie disappearance of the hands, the fakir con-
tinuing his evocations {mantras) more earnestly than ever, a cloud tike
the first, but more opalescent and more opaque, began to hover near
the small brasier, which, by request of the Hindu, I had constantly fed
with live coals. Little by little it assumed a form entire human, and I
distinguished the spectre — for I cannot call it otherwise — of an old Brah-
man sacrificator, kneeling near the little brasier.
" He bore on his forehead the signs sacred to Vishnu, and around his
THE LIVING SPECTRE OF A BRAHMAN. lOS
body the triple cord, sign of the initiates of the priestly caste. He joined
his hands above his head, as during the sacrifices, and his hps moved as
if they were reciting prayers. At a given moment, he took d pinch of
perfumed powder, and threw it upon the coals ; it must have been a
strong compound, for a thick smoke arose on the instant, and filled the
two chambers.
"When it was dissipated, I perceived the spectre, which, two steps
from me, was extending to me its fieshless hand ; J took it in mine, mak-
ing a salutation, and I was astonished to find it, although bony and hard,
warm and living.
" 'Art thou, indeed,' said I at this moment, in a loud voice, ' an ancient
inhabitant of the earth ? '
" I had not finished the question, when the word am (yes) appeared
and then disappeared in letters of fire, on the breast of the old Brahman,
with an effect much like that which the word would produce if written in
the dark with a stick of phosphorus.
" 'Win you leave me nothing in token of your visit ?' I continued.
"The spirit broke the triple cord, composed of three strands of cot-
ton, which begirt his loins, gave it to me, and vanished at my feet." *
" Oh Brahma ! what is this mystery which takes place every night ?
. . . When lying on the matting, with eyes closed, the body is lost sight
of, and the soul escapes to enter into conversation with the Pitris. . . .
Watch over it, O Brahma, when, forsaking the resting body, it goes away
to hover over the waters, to wander in the immensity of heaven, and
penetrate into the dark and mysterious nooks of the valleys and grand
forests of the Hymavat ! " {Agroushada Partkshai.)
The fakirs, when belonging to some particular temple, never act but
under orders. Not one of them, unless he has reached a degree of extra-
ordinary sanctity, is freed from the influence and guidance of his guru, his
teacher, who first initiated and instructed him in the mysteries of the
occult sciences. Like the subject of the European mesmerizer, the aver-
age fakir can never rid himself entirely of the psychological influence
exercised on him by his guru. Having passed two or three hours in the
silence and' solitude of the inner temple in prayer and meditation, the
fakir, when he emerges thence, is mesmerically strengthened and pre-
pared ; he produces wonders far more varied and powerful than before
he entered. The "master" has laid his Jiands upon him, and the fakir
feels strong.
It may be shown, on the authority of many Brahraanical and Buddhist
sacred books, that there has ever existed a great difference between
* Louis JacolUot : " Phenomenes et Manifestations."
I06 ISIS UNVEILED.
adepts of the higher order, and purely psychological subjects — like many
of these fakirs, who are mediums in a certain qualified sense. True,
the fakir is ever talking of Pitris, and this is natural ; for they are his
protecting deities. But are the Pitris disembodied human beijigs of our
race'l This is the question, and we will discuss it in a moment.
We say that the fakir may be regarded in a degree as a medium ;
for he is — what is not generally known — under the direct mesmeric in-
fluence of a living adept, his sannyasi or guru. When the latter dies,
the power of the former, unless he has received the last transfer of
spiritual forces, wanes and often even disappears. Wh}', if it were other-
wise, should the fakirs have been excluded from the right of advancing
to the second and third degree ? The lives of many of them exempHfy
a degree of self-sacrifice and sanctity unknown and utterly incomprehen-
sible to Europeans, who shudder at the bare thought of such self-inflicted
tortures. But however shielded from control by vulgar and earth-bound
spirits, however wide the chasm between a debasing influence and their
self-controlled souls ; and however well protected by the seven-knotted ma-
gical bamboo rod which he receives from the guru, still the fakir lives in the
outer world of sin and matter, and it is possible that his soul may be
tainted, perchance, by the magnetic emanations from profane objects
and persons, and thereby open an access to strange spirits and gods.
To admit one so situated, one not under any and all circumstances
sure of the mastery over himself, to a knowledge of the awful mysteries
and priceless secrets of initiation, would be impracticable. It would not
only imperil the security of that which must, at all hazards, be guarded
from profanation, but it would be consenting to admit behind the veil a
fellow being, whose mediumistic irresponsibility might at any moment
cause him to lose his life through an involuntary indiscretion. The same
law which prevailed in the Eleusinian Mysteries before our era, holds
good now in India.
Not only must the adept have mastery over himself, but he must be
able to control the inferior grades of spiritual beings, nature-spirits, and
earthbound souls, in short the very ones by whom, if by any, the fakir is
liable to be affected. '
For the objector to affirm that the Brahman-adepts and the fakirs admit
that of themselves they are powerless, and can only act with the help of
disembodied human spirits, is to state that these Hindus are unacquainted
with the laws of their sacred books and even the meaning of the word Pitris.
The Laws of Mann, the Atharva-Veda, and other books, prove what we
now say. "All that exists," says the Atharva-Veda, "is in the powei
of the gods. The gods are under the power of magical conjurations.
The magical conjurations are under the control of the Brahmans. Hence
WHAT THE PITRIS ARE AND ARE NOT. lOJ
the gods are in the power of the Brahmans." This is logical, albeit seem-
ingly paradoxical, and it is the fact. And this fact will explain to those
who have not hitherto had the clew (among whom Jacolliot must be num-
bered, as will appear on reading his works), why the fakir should be con-
fined to the first, or lowest degree of that course of initiation whose highest
adepts, or hierophants, are the sannydsis, or members of the ancient
Supreme Council of Seventy.
Moreover, in Book I., of the Hindu Genesis, or Book of Creation
of Md'iu, the Pitris are called the lunar ancestors of the human race.
They belong to a race of beings different from ourselves, and cannot
properly be called " human spirits " in the sense in which the spiritualists
use this term. This is what is said of them :
"Then they (the gods) created the Jackshas, the Rakshasas, the
Pisatshas,* the Gandarbas f and the Apsaras, and the Asuras, the Nagas,
the Sarpas and the Suparnas, \ and the Pitris — lunar ancestors of the
human race" (See Listitutes of Mann, Book I., sloka 37, where the Pitris
are termed " progenitors of mankind ").
The Pitris are a distinct race of spirits belonging to the mytho-
logical hierarchy or rather to the kabalistical nomenclature, and must
be included with the good genii, the dasmons of the Greeks, or the
inferior gods of tire invisible world ; and when a fakir attributes his phe-
nomena to the Pitris, he means only what the ancient philosophers and
theurgists meant when they maintained that all the "miracles" were
obtained through the intervention of the gods, or the good and bad
daemons, who control the powers of nature, the elementals, who are subor-
dinate to the power of him " who knows." A ghost or human phantom
would be termed by a fakir patit, or chutnd, as that of a female human
i^\nt pichhalpdi, not pitris. True, pita ra means (plural) fathers, ances-
tors ; and pitra-i is a kinsman ; but these words are used in quite a
different sense from that of the Pitris invoked in the mantras.
To maintain before a devout Brahman or a fakir that any one can
converse with the spirits of the dead, would be to shock him with what
would appear to him blasphemy. Does not the concluding verse of the
Bagavat state that this supreme felicity is alone reserved to the holy
sannyasis, the gurus, and yogis ?
" Long before they finally rid themselves of their mortal envelopes,
the souls who have practiced only good, such as those of the sannyasis
and the vanaprasthas, acquire the faculty of conversing with the souls
which preceded them to the swarga."
* Pisatshas, diemons of the race of the gnomes, the giants and the vampiies.
\ Gandarbas, good djemons, celestial sei aphs, singers.
i Asuras and Nagas are the Titanic spirits and the dragon or serpent -headed spirits.
I08 ISIS UNVEILED.
In this case the Pitris instead of genii are the spirits, or rather souls,
of the departed ones. But they will freely communicate only with those
whose atmosphere is as pure as their own, and to whose prayerful kalassa
(invocation) they can respond without the risk of defiling their own celes-
tial purity. When the soul of the invocator has reached the Sayadyam,
or perfect identity of essence with the Universal Soul, when matter is
utterly conquered, then the adept can freely enter into daily and hourly
communion with those who, though unburdened with their corporeal forms,
are still themselves progressing through the endless series of transforma-
tions included in the gradual approach to the Parani^tma, or the grand
Universal Soul.
Bearing in mind that the Christian fathers have always claimed for
themselves and their saints the name of " friends of God," and knowing
that they borrowed this expression, with many others, from the technology
of the Pagan temples, it is but natural to expect them to show an evil
temper whenever alluding to these rites. Ignorant, as a rule, and having
had biographers as ignorant as themselves, we could not well expect
them to find in the accounts of their beatific visions a descriptive beauty
such as we find in the Pagan classics. Whether the visions and objective
phenomena claimed by both the fathers of the desert and the hierophants
of the sanctuary are to be discredited, or accepted as facts, the splendid
imagery employed by Proclus and Apuleius in narrating the small por-
tion of the final initiation that they dared reveal, throws completely into
the shade the plagiaristic tales of the Christian ascetics, faithful copies
though they were intended to be. The story of the temptation of St.
Anthony in the desert by the female demon, is a parody upon the prelim-
inary trials of the neophyte during the Mikra, or minor Mysteries of
Agree — those rites at the thought of which Clemens railed so bitterly, and
which represented the bereaved Demeter in search of her child, and her
good-natured hostess Baubo. *
Without entering again into a demonstration that in Christian, and
especially Irish Roman Catholic, churches f the same apparently in-
decent customs as the above prevailed until the end of the last century,
we will recur to the untiring labors of that honest and brave defender of
the ancient faith, Thomas Taylor, and his works. However much dog-
matic Greek scholarship may have found to say against his "mistransla-
tions," his memory must be dear to every true Platonist, who seeks rather
to learn the inner thought of the great philosopher than enjoy the mere
external mechanism of his writings. Better classical translators may have
* See Arnolius: " Op. Cit.," pp. 249, 250.
f See Inman's " Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism."
DESERVED PRAISE OF THOMAS TAYLOR. 109
rendered us, in more correct phraeeology, Plato's words, but Taylor shows
us Plato's meaning, and this is more than can be said of Zeller, Jowett, and
their predecessors. Yet, as writes Professor A. Wilder, " Taylor's works
have met with favor at the hands of men capable of profound and recon-
dite thinking ; and it must be conceded that he was endowed with a
superior qualification — that of an intuitive perception of the interior
meaning of the subjects which he considered. Others may have known
more Greek, but he knew more Plato." *
Taylor devoted his whole useful life to the search after such old
manuscripts as would enable him to have his own speculations concerning
several obscure rites in the Mysteries corroborated by writers who had
been initiated themselves. It is with full confidence in the assertions of
various classical writers that we say that ridiculous, perhaps licentious in
some cases, as may appear ancient worship to the modern critic, it ought
not to have so appeared to the Christians. During the mediaeval ages, and
even later, they accepted pretty nearly the same without understanding
the secret import of its rites, and quite satisfied with the obscure and
rather fantastic interpretations of their clergy, who accepted the exterior
form and distorted the inner meaning. We are ready to concede, in full
justice, that centuries have passed since the great majority of the Chris-
tian clergy, who are not allowed to pry into Gods mysteries nor seek to
explain that which the Church has once accepted and established, have
had the remotest idea of their symbolism, whether in its exoteric or eso-
teric meaning. Not so with the head of the Church and its highest digni-
taries. And if we fully agree with Inman that it is "difficult to believe
that the ecclesiastics who sanctioned the publication of such prints f could
have been as ignorant as modern ritualists," we are not at all prepared
to believe with the same author "that the latter, if they knew the real
meaning of the symbols commonly used by the Roman Church, would
not have adopted them."
To eliminate what is plainly derived from the sex and nature wor-
* Introduction to Taylor's " Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries," published by J. W.
Bouton.
\ Illustrated figures " from an ancient Rosary of the blessed Virgin Mary, printed at
Venice, 1524, with a license from the Inquisition." In the illustrations given by Dr.
Inman the Virgin is represented in an Assyrian ** grove," the abomination in the eyes
of the Lord, according to the Bible prophets. " The book in question," says the author,
" coutains numerous figures, all resembling closely the Mesopotamian emblem of Ishtar.
The presence of the woman therein identifies the two as symbolic of Isis, or la nature ;
and a man bowing down in adoration thereof shows the same idea as is depicted in
Assyrian sculptures, where males offer to the goddess symbols of themselves " (See
"Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism," p. 91. Second edition. J. W.
Bouton, publisher, New York).
no ISIS UNVEILED.
ship of the ancient heathens, would be equivalent to pulling down the
whole Roman Catholic image-worship— the Madonna element — and
reforming the faith to Protestantism. The enforcement of the late dogma
of the Immaculation was prompted by this very secret reason. The
science of symbology was making too rapid progress. Blind faith in the
Pope's infallibility and in the immaculate nature of the Virgin ar.d of her
ancestral female lineage to a certain remove could alone save the Church
from the indiscreet revelations of science. It was a clever stroke of
policy on the part of the vicegerent of God. What matters it if, by
'■conferring upon her such an honor," as Don Pascale de Franciscis
naively expresses it, he has made a goddess of the Virgin Mary, an Olym-
pian Deity, who, having been by her very nature placed in the impossi-
bility of sinning, can claim no virtue, no personal merit for her puritj',
precisely for which, as we were taught to believe in our younger days, she
was chosen among all other women. If his Holiness has deprived her of
this, perhaps, on the other hand, he thinks that he has endowed her with
at least one physical attribute not shared by the other virgin-goddesses.
But even this new dogma, which, in company with the new claim to
infallibility, has quasi-revolutionised the Christian world, is not original
with the Church of Rome. It is but a return to a hardly-remembered
heresy of the early Christian ages, that of the CoUyridians, so called from
their sacrificing cakes to the Virgin, whom they claimed to be Virgin-
born. * The new sentence, " O, Virgin Mary, coticeived without sin" is
simply a tardy acceptance of that which was at first deemed a '■^blasphemous
heresie" by the orthodox fathers.
To think for one moment that any of the popes, cardinals, or other
high dignitaries "were not aware " from the first to the last of the exter-
nal meanings of their symbols, is to do injustice to their great learning
and their spirit of Machiavellism. It is to forget that the emissaries of
Rome will never be stopped by any difficulty which can be skirted by the
employment of Jesuitical artifice. The policy of complaisant conformity
was never carried to greater lengths than by the missionaries in Ceylon,
who, according to the Abb6 Dubois — certainly a learned and competent
authority — " conducted the images of the Virgin and Saviour on triumphal
cars, imitated from the orgies of Juggernauth, and introduced the dancers
from the Brahminical rites into the ceremonial of the church." f Let us
at least thank these black-frocked politicians for their consistency in
employing the car of Juggernauth, upon which the "wicked heathen"
* See King's " Gnostics," pp. 91, 92 ; " Tlie Genealogy of the Blessed Virgin
Mary," by Faustus, Bishop of Riez.
\ Prinseps quotes Dubois, "Edinburgh Review," April, 1851, p. 411.
THE VIRGIN MARY ON THE CAR OF JUGGERNAUTH. Ill
convey the liiii^ham of Siva. To have used this car to carry in its turn
the Romish representative of the female principle in nature, is to show-
discrimination and a thorough knowledge of the oldest mythological con-
ceptions. They have blended the two deities, and thus represented, in a
Christian procession, the "heathen" Brahma, or Nara (the father), Nari
(the mother), and Viradj (the son).
Says Manu : " The Sovereign Master who exists through himself, di-
vides his body into two halves, male and female, and from the union of
tliese two principles is born Viradj, the Son."*
There was not a Christian Father who could have been ignorant of
these symbols in their physical meaning ; for it is in this latter aspect
that they were abandoned to the ignorant rabble. Moreover, they all
had as good reasons to suspect the occult symbolism contained in these
images ; although as none of them — Paul excepted, perhaps — had been
initiated they could know nothing whatever about the nature of the final
rites. Any person revealing these mysteries was put to death, regardless
of sex, nationality, or creed. A Christian father would no more be
proof against an accident than a Pagan ATysta or the Mu'ctttjs.
If during the Aporreta or preliminary arcanes, there were some
practices which might have shocked the pudicity of a Christian convert
— though we doubt the sincerity of such statements — their mystical
symbolism was all sufficient to relieve the performance of any charge of
licentiousness. Even the episode of the Matron Baubo — whose rather
eccentric method of consolation was immortalized in the minor Myste-
ries— is explained by impartial mystagogues quite naturally. Ceres-
Demeter and her earthly wanderings in search of her daughter are the
euhemerized descriptions of one of the most metaphysico-psychological
subjects ever treated of by human mind. It is a mask for the transcend-
ent narrative of the initiated seers ; the celestial vision of the freed soul
of the initiate of the last hour describing the process by which the soul
that has not yet been incarnated descends for the first time into matter,
" Blessed is he who hath seen those common C07icerns of the under-
world ; he knows both the end of life and its divine origin from Jupiter,"
says Pindar. Taylor shows, on the authority of more than one initiate,
tliat the " dramatic performances of the Lesser Mysteries were designed
by their founders, to signify occultly the condition of the unpurified soul
invested with an earthly body, and enveloped in a material and physical
* " Manu," book I., sloka 32 : Sir W.Jones, translating from the Northern "Manu,"
renders this sloka as follows : " Having divided his own substance, the mighty Power
became half male, half female, or nature active and passive ; and from that female he
produced Viraj.
112 ISIS UNVEILED.
nature . . . that the soul, indeed, till purified by philosophy, suffers
death through i-ts union with the body."
The body is the sepulchre, the prison of the soul, and many Christian
Fathers held with Plato that the soul is punished through its union with
the body. Such is the fundamental doctrine of the Buddhists and of
many Brahmanists too. When Plotinus remarks that " when the soul
has descended into generation (from its half-Axwrne condition) she par-
takes of evil, and is carried a great way into a state the opposite of her
first purity and integrity, to be entirely merged in which is nothing more
than to fall into dark mire ; " * he only repeats the teachings of Gautama-
Buddha. If we have to believe the ancient initiates at all, we must
accept their interpretation of the symbols. And if, moreover, we find
them perfectly coinciding with the teachings of the greatest philosophers
and that which we know symbolizes the same meaning in the modern
Mysteries in the East, we must believe them to be right.
If Demeter was considered the intellectual soul, or rather the Astral
soul, half emanation from the spirit and half tainted with matter through
a succession of spiritual evolutions — we may readily understand what is
meant by the Matron Baubo, the Enchantress, who before she succeeds
in reconciling the soul — Demeter, to its new position, finds herseff obliged
to assume the sexual forms of an infant. Baubo is matter, the physical
body ; and the intellectual, as yet pure astral soul can be ensnared into
its new terrestrial prison but by the display of innocent babyhood.
Until then, doomed -to her fate, Demeter, or Magna-mater, the Soul, won-
ders and hesitates and suffers ; but once having partaken of the magic
potion prepared by Baubo, she forgets her sorrows ; for a certain time
she parts with that consciousness of higher intellect that she was pos-
sessed of before entering the body of a child. Thenceforth she must
seek to rejoin it again ; and when the age of reason arrives for the child,
the struggle — forgotten for a few years of infancy — begins again. The
astral soul is placed between matter (body) and the highest intellect
(its immortal spirit or nous). Which of those two will conquer? The
result of the battle of life lies between the triad. It is a question of a
few years of physical enjoyment on earth and — if it has begotten abuse
— of the dissolution of the earthly body being followed by death of the
astral body, which thus is prevented from being united with the highest
spirit of the triad, which alone confers on us individual imniortaUty ; or,
on the other hand, of becoming immortal mystse ; initiated before death
of the body into the divine truths of the after life. Demi-gods below,
and GODS above.
* " Enead," i., book viii.
THE SUBLIMEST PART OF THE EPOPTEIA. I13
t
Such was the chief object of the Mysteries represented as diabolical
by theology, and ridiculed by modern symbologists. To disbelieve that
there exist in man certain arcane powers, which, by psychological study
he can develop in himself to the highest degree, become an hierophant
and then impart to others upder the same conditions of earthly discipline,
is to cast an imputation of falsehood and lunacy upon a number of the
best, purest, and most learned men of antiquity and of the middle ages.
What the hierophant was allowed to see at the last hour is hardly hinted
at by them. And yet Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, lamblichus, Proclus,
and many others knew and affirmed their reality.
Whether in the "inner temple," or through the study of theurgy carried
on privately, or by the sole exertion of a whole life of spiritual labor, they
all obtained the practical proof of such divine possibilities for man fight-
ing his battle with life on earth to win a life in the eternity. What the
last epopteia was is alluded to by Plato in Phxdrus (64) ; " . . . being
initiated in those Mysteries, which it is lawful to call the most blessed of
all mysteries ... we were freed from the molestations of evils which
otherwise await us in a future period of time. Likewise, in consequence
of this divine initiation, we became spectators of entire, simple, immova-
ble, and blessed visions, resident in a pure light." This sentence shows
that they saw visions, gods, spirits. As Taylor correctly observes, from
all such passages in the works of the initiates it may be inferred, " that
the most sublime part of the epopteia . . . consisted in beholding the
gods themselves invested with a resislendent light," or highest planetary
spirits. The statement of Proclus upon this subject is unequivocal : "In
all the initiations and mysteries, the gods exhibit many forms of them-
selves, and appear in o. variety of shapes, and sometimes, indeed, a form-
less light of themselves is held forth to the view ; sometimes this light is
according to a human form, and sometimes it proceeds into a different
shape." *
" Whatever is on earth is the resemblance and shadow of something
that is in the sphere, while that resplendent thing (the prototype of the
soul-spirit) remaineth in unchangeable condition, it is well also with its
shadow. But when the resplendent one renioveth far from its shadow life
removeth from the latter to a distance. And yet, that very light is the
shadow of something still more resplendent than itself." Thus speaks
Desatir, the Persian Book of Shet,\ thereby showing its identity of eso-
teric doctrines with those of the Greek philosophers.
The second statement of Plato confirms our belief that the Mysteries
of the ancients were identical with the Initiations, as practiced now
• " Commentary upon the Republic of Plato," p. 380. f Verses 33-41.
114 ISIS UNVEILED.
among the Buddhists and the Hindu adepts. The highest visions, the
most truthful, are produced, not through natural ecstatics or "mediums,"
as it is sometimes erroneously asserted, but through a regular discipline
of gradual initiations and development of psychical powers. The Mystae
were brought into close union with those whom Proclus calls " mystical
natures," "resplendent gods," because, as Plato says, "we were our-
selves pure and immaculate, being liberated from this surrounding vest-
me?it, which we denominate body, and to which we are now bound like
an oyster to its shell." *
So the doctrine of planetary and terrestrial Pitris was revealed en-
tirely in ancient India, as well as now, only at the last moment of
initiation, and to the adepts of superior degrees. Many are the fakirs,
who, though pure, and honest, and self-devoted, have yet never seen the
astral form of a purely hutnan pilar (an ancestor or father), otherwise
than at the solemn moment of their first and last initiation. It is in the
presence of his instructor, the guru, and just before the vatou-ii^\x is
dispatched into the world of the living, with his seven-knotted bamboo
wand for all protection, that he is suddenly placed face to face with the
unknown presence. He sees it, and falls prostrate at the feet of the
evanescent form, but is not entrusted with the great secret of its evoca-
tion ; for it is the supreme mystery of the holy syllable. The AuM con-
tains the evocation of the Vedic triad, the Trimurti Brahma, Vishnu, Siva,
say the Orientalists ; f it contains the evocation of something more real
and objective than this triime abstraction — we say, respectfully contradict-
ing the eminent scientists. It is the trinity of man himself, on his way
to become immortal through the solemn union of his inner triune self — •
the exterior, gross body, the husk not even being taken in consideration
in this human trinity.J It is, when this trinity, in anticipation of the final
* " Phsedrus," p. 64.
f The Supreme Buddha is invoked with two of his acolytes of the theistic triad,
Dharma and Sanga. This triad is addressed in Sanscrit in the following terms :
Namo Buddhdya,
Na7no Dharmdya,
Navto Sang&ya,
Aum !
while the Thibetan Buddhists pronounce their invocations as follows :
Nan-won Fo-tho-ye^
Nan-won Tha-ma-ye,
Nan-won Seng-kia-ye,
Aan !
See also " Journal Asiatique," tome vii., p. 286.
X The body of man — his coat of skin — is an inert mass of matter, per se; it is but
the sentietit living body within the man that is considered as the man's body proper,
HOW HUMAN SPIRITS CAN BE CONFERRED WITH. II 5
triumphant reunion beyond the gates of corporeal death became for a
few seconds a unity, that the candidate is allowed, at the moment of the
initiation, to behold his future self. Thus we read in the Persian Desa-
tir, of the " Resplendent one ; " in the Greek philosopher-initiates, of
the Augoeides — the self shining " blessed vision resident in the pure light ; "
in Porphyry, that Plotinus was united to his " god " six times during his
lifetime ; and so on.
" In ancient India, the mystery of the triad, known but to the ini-
tiates, could not, under the penalty of death, be revealed to the vulgar,"
says Vrihaspati,
Neither could it in the ancient Grecian and Samothracian Mysteries.
Nor can it be now. It is in the hands of the adepts, and must remain
a mystery to the world so long as the materialistic savant regards it as an
undemonstrated fallacy, an insane hallucination, and the dogmatic theo-
logian, a snare of the Evil One.
Subjective communication with the human, god-hke spirits of those who
have preceded us to the silent land of bhss, is in India divided into three
categories. Under the spiritual training of a guru or sannyasi, the vatou
(disciple or neophyte) begins to feel them. Were he not under the imme-
diate guidance of an adept, he would be controlled by the invisibles, and
utterly at their mercy, for among these subjective influences he is unable
to discern the good from the bad. Happy the sensitive who is sure of
the purity of his spiritual atmosphere !
To this subjective consciousness, which is the first degree, is, after
a time, added that of clairaudience. This is the second degree or stage of
development. The sensitive — when not naturally made so by psycho-
logical training — now audibly hears, but is still unable to discern ; and
is incapable of verifying his impressions, and one who is unprotected
the tricky powers of the air but too often delude with semblances of
voices and speech. But the guru's influence is there ; it is the most
powerful shield against the intrusion of the bhictnd into the atmosphere
of the vatou, consecrated to the pure, human, and celestial Pitris.
The third degree is that when the fakir or any other candidate both
feels, hears, and sees ; and when he can at will produce the reflections
of the Pitris on the mirror of astral light. All depends upon his psycho-
logical and mesmeric powers, which are always proportionate to the in-
tensity of his will. But the fakir will never control the Akasa, the spir-
itual life -principle, the omnipotent agent of every phenomenon, in the
same deo-ree as an adept of the third and highest initiation. And the
and it is that which, together with the fontal soul or purely astral body, directly con-
nected with the immortal spirit, constitutes the trinity of man.
Il6 ISIS UNVEILED.
phenomena produced by the will of the latter do not generally run the
market-places for the satisfaction of open-mouthed investigators.
The unity of God, the immortality of the spirit, belief in salvation
only through our works, merit and demerit ; such are the principal arti-
cles of faith of the Wisdom-religion, and the ground -work of Vedaisni,
Buddhism, Parsism, and such we find to have been even that of the an-
cient Osirism, when we, after abandoning the popular sun-god to the
materialism of the rabble, confine our attention to the Books of Hermes,
the thrice-great.
" The THOUGHT concealed as yet the world in silence and darkness.
. . . Then the Lord who exists through Himself, and who is not to be
divulged to the external senses of man ; dissipated darkness, and mani-
fested the perceptible world."
" He that can be perceived only by the spirit, that escapes the
organs of sense, who is without visible parts, eternal, the soul of all
beings, that none can comprehend, displayed His own splendor "
{Manu, book i., slokas, 6-7).
Such is the ideal of the Supreme in the mind of every Hindu phil-
osopher.
" Of all the duties, the principal one is to acquire the knowledge of
the supreme soul (the spirit) ; it is the first of all sciences, for it alone
confers on man immortality " [Manu, book xii., sloka 85).
And our scientists talk of the Nirvana of Buddha and the Moksha of
Brahma as of a complete annihilation ! It is thus that the following
verse is interpreted by some materialists.
" The man who recognizes the Supreme Soul, in his own soul, as
well as in that of all creatures, and who is equally just to all (whether
man or animals) obtains the happiest of all fates, that to be finally ab-
sorbed in the bosom of Brahma" (Manu, book xii., sloka 125).
The doctrine of the Moksha and the Nirvana, as understood by the
school of Max Miiller, can never bear confronting with numerous texts
that can be found, if required, as a final refutation. There are sculp-
tures in many pagodas which contradict, point-blank, the imputation.
Ask a Brahman to explain Moksha, address yourself to an educated Bud-
dhist and pray him to define for you the meaning of Nirvana. Both
will answer you that in every one of these religions Nirvana represents
the dogma of the spirit's immortality. That, to reach the Nirvana
means absorption into the great universal soul, the latter representing a
state, not an individual being or an anthropomorphic god, as some under-
stand the great existence. That a spirit reaching such a state becomes
a part of the integral whole, but never loses its individuality for all that.
Henceforth, the spirit lives spiritually, without any fear of further modi-
THE VISIONS OF SEERS NOT PROVOKED BY DRUGS. 11/
fications of form ; for form pertains to matter, and the state of Nirvana
implies a complete purification or a final riddance from even the most
sublimated particle of matter.
This word, absorbed, when it is proved that the Hindus and Buddhists
believe in the immortality of the spirit, must necessarily mean intimate
union, not annihilation. Let Christians call them idolaters, if they still dare
do so, in the face of science and the latest translations of the sacred
Sanscrit books ; they have no right to present the speculative philosophy
of ancient sages as an inconsistency and the philosophers themselves as
illogical fools. With far better reason we can accuse the ancient Jews
of utter nihilism. There is not a word contained in the Books of Moses
— or the prophets either — which, taken literally, implies the spirit's immor-
tality. Yet every devout Jew hopes as well to be "gathered into the
bosom of A-Braham."
The hierophants and some Brahmans are accused of having adminis-
tered to their epoptai strong drinks or ansesthetics to produce visions which
shall be taken by the latter as realities. They did and do use sacred bever-
ages which, like the Soma-drink, possess the faculty of freeing the astral
form from the bonds of matter ; but in those visions there is as little to
be attributed to hallucination as in the glimpses which the scientist, by
the help of his optical instrument, gets into the microscopic world. A man
cannot perceive, touch, and converse with pure spirit through any of his
bodily senses. Only spirit alone can talk to and see spirit ; and even
our astral soul, the Doppelganger, is too gross, too much tainted yet with
earthly matter to trust entirely to its perceptions and insinuations.
How dangerous may often become untrained mediumship, and how
thoroughly it was understood and provided against by the ancient sages,
is perfectly exemplified in the case of Socrates. The old Grecian phi-
losopher was a " medium ; " hence, he had never been initiated into the
Mysteries ; for such was the rigorous law. But he had his " familiar
spirit " as they call it, his daimonion ; and this invisible counsellor
became the cause of his death. It is generally believed that if he was
not initiated into the Mysteries it was because he himself neglected to
become so. But the Secret Records teach us that it was because he could
not be admitted to participate in the sacred rites, and precisely, as we
state, on account of his mediumship. There was a law against the
admission not only of such as were convicted of deliberate witchcraft *
* We really think that the word ' ' witchcraft ' ' ought, once for all, to be understood
in the sense which properly belongs to it. Witchcraft may be either conscious or uncon-
scious. Certain wicked and dangerous results may be obtaiatid through the mesmeric
powers of a so-called sorcerer, who misuses his potential fluid ; or again tliey may be
achieved through an easy access of malicious tricky " spirits " (so much the worse if
Il8 ISIS UNVEILED.
but even of those who were known to have " a familiar spirit." The law-
was just and logical, because a genuine medium is more or less irre-
sponsible ; and the eccentricities of Socrates are thus accounted for in
some degree. A medium must he passive ; and if a firm believer in his
" spirit-guide " he will allow himself to be ruled by the latter, not by the
rules of the sanctuary. A medium of olden times, like the modern
"medium" was subject to be entranced at the will and pleasure of the
"power" which controlled him; therefore, he could not well have been
entrusted with the awful secrets of the final initiation, "never to be revealed
under the penalty of death." The old sage, in unguarded moments of
"spiritual inspiration," revealed that which he had never learned ; and
was therefore put to death as an atheist.
How then, with such an instance as that of Socrates, in relation to
the visions and spiritual wonders at the epoptai, of the Inner Temple,
can any one assert that these seers, theurgists, and thauniaturgists were
all " spirit-mediums ? " Neither Pythagoras, Plato, nor any of the later
more important Neo-platonists ; neither lamblichus, Longinus, Proclus,
nor ApoUonius of Tyana, were ever mediums ; for in such case they
would not have been admitted to the Mysteries at all. As Taylor proves
— " This assertion of divine visions in the Mysteries is clearly confirmed
by Plotinus. And in short, that magical evocation formed a part of the
sacerdotal office in them, and that this was universally believed by all
antiquity long before the era of the later Platonists," shows that apart
from natural " mediumship," there has existed, from the beginning of
time, a mysterious science, discussed by many, but known only to a few.
The use of it is a longing toward our only true and real home — the
after-life, and a desire to cling more closely to our parent spirit ; abuse
of it is sorcery, witchcraft, black magic. Between the two is placed natu-
ral " mediumship ; " a soul clothed with imperfect matter, a ready agent
for either the one'or the other, and utterly dependent on its surroundings
of life, constitutional heredity — physical as well as mental — and on the
nature of the " spirits" it attracts around itself. A blessing or a curse,
as fate will have it, unless the medium is purified of earthly dross.
The reason why in every age so little has been generally known of the
mysteries of initiation, is twofold. The first has already been explained
by more than one author, and Hes in the terrible penalty following the least
indiscretion. The second, is the superhuman difficulties and even dan-
gers which the daring candidate of old had to encounter, and either con-
quer, or die in the attempt, when, what is still worse, he did not lose his
human) to the atmosphere surrounding a medium. How many thousands of such irre-
sponsible innocent victims have met infamous deaths through the tricks of those Ele-
mentai'ies !
THE FOUR TAN AIM OF THE TALMUD. II9
reason. There was no real danger to him whose mind had become thor-
oughl}' spiritualized, and so prepared for every terrific sight. He who
fully recognized the power of his immortal spirit, and never doubted for
one moment its omnipotent protection, had naught to fear. But woe to
the candidate in whom the slightest physical fear — sickly child of matter
— made him lose sight and faith in his own invulnerability. He who
was not wholly confident of his moral fitness to accept the burden of these
tremendous secrets was doomed.
The Talmud gives the story of the four Tanaim, who are made, in
allegorical terms, to enter into the garden of delights ; i. e., to be initia-
ted into the occult and final science.
"According to the teaching of our holy masters the names of the four
who entered the garden of delight, are : Ben Asai, Ben Zoma, Acher, and
Rabbi Akiba. . . .
"Ben Asai looked and — lost his sight.
"Ben Zoma looked and — lost his reason.
"Acher made depredations in the plantation" (mixed up the whole
and failed). " But Akiba, who had entered in peace, came out of it in
peace, for the saint whose name be blessed had said, ' This old man is
worthy of serving us with glory.' "
"The learned commentators of the Talmud, the Rabbis of the s)'na-
gogue, explain that the garden of delight, in which those four personages
are made to enter, is but that mysterious science, the most terrible of
sciences for weak intellects, which it leads directly to insanity" says A.
Franck, in his Kabbala. It is not the pure at heart and he who studies
but with a view to perfecting himself and so more easily acquiring the
promised immortality, who need have any fear ; but rather he who
makes of the science of sciences a sinful pretext for worldly motives, who
should tremble. The latter will never withstand the kahalistic evocations
of the supreme initiation.
The licentious performances of the thousand and one early Christian
sects, may be criticised by partial commentators as well as the ancient
Eleusinian and other rites. But why should they incur the blame of the
theologians, the Christians, when their own " Mysteries" of " the divine
incarnation with Joseph, Mary, and the angel " in a sacred trilogue used
to be enacted in more than one country, and were famous at one time in
Spain and Southern France? Later, they fell like many other once
secret rites into the hands of the populace. It is but a few years since,
during every Christmas week, Punch-and- Judy-boxes, containing the above
named personages, an additional display of the infant Jesus in his manger,
were carried about the country in Poland and Southern Russia. They
were called Kaliadovki, a word the correct etymology of which we are
I20 ISIS UNVEILED.
unable to give unless it is from the verb Kaliadovdt, a word that we as
willingly abandon to learned philologists. We have seen this show in
our days of childhood. We remember the three king-Magi represented
by three dolls in powdered wigs and colored tights ; and it is from recol-
lecting the simple, profound veneration depicted on the faces of the
pious audience, that we can the more readily appreciate the honest and
just remark by the editor, in the introduction to the Eleusinian Mysteries,
who says : "It is ignorance which leads to profanation. Men ridicule
what they do not properly understand. . . . The undercurrent of this
world is set toward one goal ; and inside of human credulity — call it
human weakness, if you please — is a power almost infinite, a holy faith
capable of apprehending the supremest truths of all existence."
If that abstract sentiment called Christian charity prevailed in the
Church, we would be well content to leave all this unsaid. We have no
quarrel with Christians whose faith is sincere and whose practice coincides
with their profession. But with an arrogant, dogmatic, and dishonest
clergy, we have nothing to do except to see the ancient philosophy —
antagonized by modern theology in its puny offspring — Spiritualism —
defended and righted so far as we are able, so that its grandeur and suffi-
ciency may be thoroughly displayed. It is not alone for the esoteric
philosophy that we fight ; nor for any modern system of moral philoso-
phy, but for the inalienable right of private judgment, and especially for
the ennobhng idea of a future life of activity and accountabiHty.
We eagerly applaud such commentators as Godfrey Higgins, Inman,
Payne Knight, King, Dunlap, and Dr. Newton, however much they disa-
gree with our own mystical views, for their diligence is constantly being
rewarded by fresh discoveries of the Pagan paternity of Christian sym-
bols. But otherwise, all these learned works are useless. Their re-
searches only cover half the ground. Lacking the true key of interpreta-
tion they see the symbols only in a physical aspect. They have no pass-
word to cause the gates of mystery to swing open ; and ancient spiritual
philosophy is to them a closed book. Diametrically opposed though
they be to the clergy in their ideas respecting it, in the way of interpreta-
tion they do little more than their opponents for a questioning public.
Their labors tend to strengthen materialism as those of the clergy,
especially the Romish clergy, do to cultivate belief in diabolism.
If the study of Hermetic philosophy held out no other hope of reward,
it would be more than enough to know that by it we may learn with what
perfection of justice the world is governed. A sermon upon this text is
preached by every page of history. Among all there is not one that con-
veys a deeper moral than the case of the Roman Church. The divine
law of compensation was never more strikingly exemplified than in the
THE ROMISH CHURCH SELF-DOOMED. 121
fact that by her own act she has deprived herself of the only possible key
to her own religious mysteries. The assumption of Godfrey Hi^gins that
there are two doctrines maintained in the Roman Church, one for the
masses and the other — the esoteric — for the " perfect," or the initiates, as
in the ancient Mysteries, appears to us unwarranted and rather fantastic.
They have lost the key, we repeat ; otherwise no terrestrial power could
have prostrated her, and except a superficial knowledge of the means of
producing " miracles," her clergy can in no way be compared in their
wisdom with the hierophants of old.
In burning the works of the theurgists ; in proscribing those who affect
their study ; in affixing the stigma of demonolatry to magic in general,
Rome has left her exoteric worship and Bible to be helplessly riddled by
every free-thinker, her sexual emblems to be identified with coarseness,
and her priests to unwittingly turn magicians and even sorcerers in their
exorcisms, which are but necromantic evocations. Thus retribution, by
the exquisite adjustment of divine law, is made to overtake this scheme of
cruelty, injustice, and bigotry, through her own suicidal acts.
True philosophy and divine truth are convertible terms. A religion
which dreads the light cannot be a religion based on either truth or phil-
osophy— hence, it must be false. The ancient Mysteries were mysteries
to the profane only, whom the hierophant never sought nor would accept as
proselytes; to the initiates the Mysteries became explained as soon as the
final veil was withdrawn. No mind like that of Pythagoras or Plato would
have contented itself with an unfathomable and incomprehensible mystery,
like that of the Christian dogma. There can be but one truth, for two
small truths on the same subject can but constitute one great error.
Among thousands of exoteric or popular conflicting religions which have
been propagated since the days when the first men were enabled to inter-
change their ideas, not a nation, not a people, nor the most abject tribe,
but after their own fashion has believed in an Unseen God, the First
Cause of unerring and immutable laws, and in the inunortality of our spirit.
No creed, no false philosophy, no religious exaggerations, could ever de-
stroy that feehng. It must, therefore, be based upon an absolute truth.
On the other hand, every one of the numberless religions and religious
sects views the Deity after its own fashion ; and, fathering on the un-
known its own speculations, it enforces these purely human outgrowths
of overheated imagination on the ignorant masses, and calls them "re-
velation." As the dogmas of every religion and sect often differ radically,
they cannot be true. And if untrue, what are they ?
"The greatest curse to a nation," remarks Dr. Inman, "is not a baa
religion, but a form of faith which prevents manly inquiry. I know of
no nation of old that was priest-ridden which did not fall under the swords
122 ISIS UNVEILED.
of those who did not care for hierarchs. . . . The greatest danger is to
be feared from those ecclesiastics who wink at vice, and encourage it as
a means whereby they can gain power over their votaries. So long as
every man does to other men as he would that they should do to him,
and allows no one to interfere between him and his Maker, all will go well
with the world." *
" Ancient Pagan and Modem Christian Symbolism," preface, p. 34.
CHAPTER III.
*'KlNG. — Let us from point to point this story know."
—Airs Well That Ends iVell.— Act v., Scene 3.
" He is the One, self-proceeding : and from Him all things proceed.
And in them He Himself exerts His activi^ : no mortal
Beholds Him, but He beholds all ! " — Orphic Hymn.
''And Athens, O Athena, is thy own !
Great Goddess hear ! and on my darkened mind
Pour thy pure light in measure unconfined :
That sacred light, O all-proceeding Queen,
Which beams eternal from thy face serene.
My soul, while wand'ring on the earth, inspire
With thy own blessed and impulsive fire ! "
— Proclus : Taylor : To Mi*ierzia.
" '^ow faith is the substance of things. ... By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that
believed not, when she had received the sj>ies in peace" — Hebreivs xi. 1,31.
" What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man hath faith, and have not works ? Can vxyth
save hint ? . . . Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by luorks, when she had received
the messengers, and had sent them out another way ? " — James ii. 14, 25.
CLEMENT describes Basilides, the Gnostic, as " a philosopher
devoted to the contemplation of divine things." This very
appropriate expression may be applied to many of the founders of the
more important sects which later were all engulfed in one — that stupen-
dous compound of unintelligible dogmas enforced by Irenceus, Tertullian,
and others, which is now termed Christianity. If these must be called
heresies, tlien early Christianity itself must be included in the number.
Basilides and Valentinus preceded Irenseus and Tertullian ; and the
two latter Fathers had less facts than the two former Gnostics to show
that their heresy was plausible. Neither divine right nor truth brought
about the triumph of their Christianity ; fate alone was propitious. We
can assert, with entire plausibilit)', that there is not one of all these
sects — KabaJism, Judaism, and our present Christianity included — but
sprang from the two main branches of that one mother-trunk, the once
universal religion, which antedated the Vedaic ages — we speak of that
prehistoric Buddlrism which merged later into Brahmanism.
The religion which the primitive teaching of the early few apostles
most resembled — a religion preached by Jesus himself — is the elder of
these two, Buddhism. The latter as taught in its primitive purity, and
carried to perfection by the last of the Buddhas, Gautama, based its
124 ISIS UNVEILED.
moral ethics on three fundamental principles. It alleged that i, every
thing existing, exists from natural causes ; 2, that virtue brings its own
reward, and vice and sin their own punishment ; and, 3, that the state
of man in this world is probationary. We might add that on these three
principles rested the universal foundation of every religious creed ; God,
and individual immortality for every man — if he could but win it.
However puzzling the subsequent theological tenets ; however seem-
ingly incomprehensible the metaphysical abstractions which have con-
vulsed the theology of every one of the great rehgions of mankind as
soon as it was placed on a sure footing, the above is found to be the
essence of every religious philosophy, with the exception of later Chris-
tianity. It was that of Zoroaster, of Pythagoras, of Plato, of Jesus,
and even of Moses, albeit the teachings of the Jewish law-giver have
been so piously tampered with.
We will devote the present chapter mainly to a brief survey of the
numerous sects which have recognized themselves as Christians ; that is
to say, that have believed in a Christos, or an anointed one. We will
also endeavor to explain the latter appellation from the kabalistic stand-
point, and show it reappearing in every religious system. It might be
profitable, at the same time, to see how much the earliest apostles — Paul
and Peter, agreed in their preaching of the new Dispensation. We will
begin with Peter.
We must once more return to that greatest of all the Patristic frauds ;
the one which has undeniably helped the Roman Catholic Church to its
unmerited supremacy, viz. : the barefaced assertion, in the teeth of histor-
ical evidence, that Peter suffered martyrdom at Rome. It is but too
natural that the Latin clergy should cling to it, for, with the exposure of
the fraudulent nature of this pretext, the dogma of apostolic succession
must fall to the ground.
There have been many able works of late, in refutation of this pre-
posterous claim. Among others we note Mr. G. Reber's, The Christ of
Paul, which overthrows it quite ingeniously. The author proves, i, that
there was no church established at Rome, until the reign of Antoninus
Pius ; 2, that as Eusebius and Irensus both agree that Linus was the
second Bishop of Rome, into whose hands " the blessed apostles " Peter
and Paul committed the church after building it, it could not have been at
any other time than between a.d. 64 and 68 ; 3, that this interval of
years happens during the reign of Nero, for Eusebius states that Linus
held this ofiice twelve years [Ecclesiastical History, book iii., c. 13),
entering upon it a.d. 69, one year after the death of Nero, and dying
himself in 8r. After that the author maintains, on very solid grounds,
that Peter could not be in Rome a.d. 64, for he was then in Babylon ;
THE FICTION OF APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 125
wherefrom he wrote his first Epistle, the date of which is fixed by Dr.
Lardner and other critics at precisely this year. But we believe that his
best argument is in proving that it was not in the character of the
cowardly Peter to risk himself in such close neighborhood with Nero,
who " was feeding the wild beasts of the Amphitheatre with the flesh and
bones of Christians " * at that time.
Perhaps the Church of Rome was but consistent in choosing as her
titular founder the apostle who thrice denied his master at the moment
of danger ; and the only one, moreover, except Judas, who provoked
Christ in such a way as to be addressed as the " Enemy." " Get thee
behind me, Satan ! " exclaims Jesus, rebuking the taunting apostle, f
There is a tradition in the Greek Church which has never found favor
at the Vatican. The former traces its origin to one of the Gnostic lead-
ers— Basilides, perhaps, who lived under Trajan and Adrian, at the end
of the first and the beginning of the second century. With regard to this
particular tradition, if the Gnostic is Basilides, then he must be accepted
as a sufficient authority, having claimed to have been a disciple of the
Apostle Matthew, and to have had for master Glaucias, a disciple of St.
Peter himself. Were the narrative attributed to him authenticated, the
London Committee for the Revision of the Bible would have to add a new
verse to Matthew, Mark, and John, who tell the story of Peter's denial
of Christ.
This tradition, then, of which we have been speaking, affirms that,
when frightened at the accusation of the servant of the high priest, the
apostle had thrice denied his master, and the cock had crowed, Jesus,
who was then passing through the hall in custody of the soldiers, turned,
and, looking at Peter, said : " Verily, I say unto thee, Peter, thou shalt
deny me throughout the coming ages, and never stop until thou shalt be
old, and shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee and
carry thee whither thou wouldst not." The latter part of this sentence,
say the Greeks, relates to the Church of Rome, and prophesies her con-
stant apostasy from Christ, under the mask of false religion. Later, it
was inserted in the twenty-first chapter of Jolin, but the whole of this
chapter had been pronounced a forgery, even before it was found that this
Gospel was never written by John the Apostle at all.
The anonymous author of Supernatural Religion, a work which in two
years passed through several editions, and which is alleged to have been
written by an eminent theologian, proves conclusively the spuriousness
of the four gospels, or at least their complete transformation in the hands
* " The Christ of Faul," p. 123.
\ Gospel according to Marlj, viii. 33.
126 ISIS UNVEILED.
of the too-zealous Iren»us and his champions. The fourth gospel is
completely upset by this able author ; the extraordinary forgeries of the
Fathers of the early centuries are plainly demonstrated, and the relative
value of the synoptics is discussed with an unprecedented power of logic.
The work carries conviction in its every line. From it we quote the fol-
lowing : " We gain infinitely more than we lose in abandoning belief in
the reality of Divine Revelation. Whilst we retain, pure and unimpaired,
the treasure of Christian morahty, we relinquish nothing but the debasing
elements added to it by human superstition. We are no longer bound
to believe a theology which outrages reason and moral sense. We are
freed from base anthropomorphic views of God and His government of
the Universe, and from Jewish Mythology we rise to higher conceptions
of an infinitely wise and beneficent Being, hidden from our finite minds, it
is true, in the impenetrable glory of Divinity, but whose laws of wondrous
comprehensiveness and perfection we ever perceive in operation around
us. . . . The argument so often employed by theologians, that Divine
revelation is necessary for man, and that certain views contained in that,
revelation are required for our moral consciousness, is purely imaginary,
and derived from the revelation which it seeks to maintain. The only
thing absolutely necessary for man is Truth, and to that, and that alone,
must our moral consciousness adapt itself." *
We will consider farther in what light was regarded the Divine reve-
lation of the Jewish Bible by the Gnostics, who yet believed in Christ in
their own way, a far better and less blasphemous one than the Roman
Cathohc. The Fathers have forced on the behevers in Christ a BiUe,
the laws prescribed in which he was the first to break ; the teachings of
which he utterly rejected ; and for which crimes he was finally crucified.
Of whatever else the Christian world can boast, it can hardly claim logic
and consistency as its chief virtues.
The fact alone that Peter remained to the last an " apostle of the cir-
cumcision," speaks for itself. Whosoever else might have built the Church
of Rome it was not Peter. If such were the case, the successors of this
apostle would have to submit themselves to circumcision, if it were but
for the sake of consistency, and to show that the claims of the popes are
not utterly groundless. Dr. Inman asserts that report says that "in our
Christian times popes have to be privately perfect," f but we do not know
whether it is carried to the extent of the Levitical Jewish law. The first
fifteen Christian bishops of Jerusalem, commencing with James and in-
cluding Judas, were all circumcised Jews. \
* " Supernatural Religion," vol. ii., p. 489.
\ " Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism," p. 28.
% See Eusebius, " E\. H,," bk. iv., ch. v. ; " Sulpicius Severus," vol. ii., p. 31.
WHO AND WHAT WAS PETER? 12/
In the Sepher Toldos Jeshu* a Hebrew manuscript of great anti-
quity, the version about Peter is different. Simon Peter, it says, was one
of their own brethren, though he had somewhat departed from the laws,
and the Jewish hatred and persecution of the apostle seems to have
existed but in the fecund imagination of the fathers. The author speaks
of him with great respect and fairness, calling him '= a faithful servant of
the living God," who passed his life in austerity and meditation, "living
in Babylon at the summit of a tower," composing hymns, and preaching
charity. He adds that Peter always recommended to the Christians not
to molest the Jews, but as soon as he was dead, behold another preacher
went to Rome and pretended that Simon Peter had altered the teachings
of his master. He invented a burning hell and threatened every one
with it ; promised miracles, but worked none.
How much there is in the above of fiction and how much of truth, it
is for others to decide ; but it certainly bears more the evidence of sin-
cerity and fact on its face, than the fables concocted by the fathers to
answer their end.
We may the mot'e readily credit this friendship between Peter and his
late co-religionists as we find in Theodoret the following assertion : " The
Nazarenes are Jews, honoring the anointed (Jesus) as a juit tnan and
using the Evangel according to Peter." f Peter was a Nazarene, accord-
ing to the Talmud. He belonged to the sect of the later Nazarenes,
which dissented from the followers of John the Baptist, and became a
rival sect ; and which — as tradition goes — was instituted by Jesus himself
History finds the first Christian sects to have been either Nazarenes like
John the Baptist ; or Ebionites, among whom were many of the relatives
of Jesus ; or Essenes (lessaens) the Therapeutfe, healers, of which the
Nazaria were a branch. All these sects, which only in the days of Ire-
njeus began to be considered heretical, were more or less kabalistic.
They believed in the expulsion of demons by magical incantations, and
practiced this method; Jervis terms the Nabatheans and other such sects
" wandering Jewish exorcists," | the Arabic word Naba, meaning to wan-
der, and the Hebrew saj naba, to prophesy. The Talmud indiscrimi-
* It appears that the Jews attribute a very high antiquity to " Sepher Toldos
Jeshu," It was mentioned for the first time by Martin, about the beginning of the
thirteenth century, for the Talmudists took great care to conceal it from the Christians.
Levi says that Porchetus Salvaticus published some portions of it, which were used by
Luther (see vol. viii. , Jena Ed.). The Hebrew text, which was missing, was at last
found by Miinster and Buxtorf, and published in i6Si, by Christopher Wagenseilius,
in Nuremberg, and in Frankfort, in a collection entitled " Tela Ignea Satanse," or
The Burning Darts of Satan (" See Levi's Science des Esprits").
f Theodoret : " Heretic. Fab.," lib. ii., ii.
\ Jervis W. Jervis : " Genesis," p. 324.
128 ISIS UNVEILED.
nately calls all the Christians Nozari. * All the Gnostic sects equally
believed in magic. Irenseus, in describing the followers of Basilides,
says, '■' They use images, invocations, incantations, and all other things
pertaining unto magic." Dunlap, on the authority of Lightfoot, shows
that Jesus was called Nazaraios, in reference to his humble and mean
external condition; "for Nazaraios means separation, alienation from
other men." f
The real meaning of the word nazar -its. signifies to vow or conse-
crate one's self to the service of God. As a noun it is a diadem or
emblem of such consecration, a head so consecrated. \ Joseph was
styled a nazar. § " The head of Joseph, the vertex of the nazar among
his brethren." Samson and Samuel (iibmb ^n-ib-j; Semes-on and Sem-
va-el) are described alike as nazars. Porphyry, treating of Pythagoras,
says that he was purified and initiated at Babylon by Zar-adas, the head
of the sacred college. May it not be surmised, therefore, that the Zoro-
Aster was the nazar of Ishtar, Zar-adas or Na-Zar-Ad, || being the same
with change of idiom ? Ezra, or x-ity, was a priest and scribe, a hiero-
phant ; and the first Hebrew colonizer of Judea wsfs V^aiit Zeru-Babel
or the Zoro or nazar of Babylon.
The Jewish Scriptures indicate two distinct worships and religions
among the Israelites; that of Bacchus-worship under the mask of Jeho-
vah, and that of the Chaldean initiates to whom belonged some of the
nazars, the theurgists, and a few of the prophets. The headquarters of
these were always at Babylon and Chaldea, where two rival schools of
Magians can be distinctly shown. Those who would doubt the state-
ment will have in such a case to account for the discrepancy between
history and Plato, who of all men of his day was certainly one of the
best informed? Speaking of the Magians, he shows them as instructing
the Persian kings of Zoroaster, as the son or priest of Oromasdes ; and
yet Darius, in the inscription at Bihistun, boasts of having restored the
cultus of Ormazd and put down the Magian rites ! Evidently there were
two distinct and antagonistic Magian schools. The oldest and the most
esoteric of the two being that which, satisfied with its unassailable knowl-
edge and secret power, was content to apparently rehnquish her exoteric
popularity, and concede her supremacy into the hands of the reforming
Darius. The later Gnostics showed the same prudent policy by accom-
modating themselves in every country to the prevailing religious forms,
still secretly adhering to their own essential doctrines.
* "Lightfoot," 501. f Dunlap : " Sod, the Son of the Man," p. x.
X Jeremiah vii. 29 : " Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take
up a lamentation on high places."
§ Genesis xlix. 26. | Nazareth ?
THE ARIST^US — EURYDIKE FABLE EXPLAINED. 1 29
There is another hypothesis possible, which is that Zero-Ishtar was
the high priest of the Chaldean worship, or Magian hierophant. When
the Aryans of Persia, under Darius Hystaspes, overthrew the Magian
Gomates, and restored the Masdean worship, there ensued an amalgama-
tion by which the Magian Zoro-astar became the Zara-tushra of the
Vendidad. This was not acceptable to the other Aryans, who adopted
the Vedic religion as distinguished from that of Avesta. But this is but
an hypothesis.
And whatever Moses is now believed to have been, we will demon-
strate that he was an initiate. The Mosaic rehgion was at best a sun-and
serpent worship, diluted, perhaps, with some slight monotheistic notions
before the latter were forcibly crammed into the so-called " inspired Scrip-
tures " by Ezra, at the time he was alleged to have r^rwritten the Mosaic
books. At all events the Book of A'umbers was a later book ; and there
the sun-and-serpent worship is as plainly traceable as in any Pagan story.
The tale of the fiery serpents is an allegory in more than one sense.
The " serpents " were the Levites or Ophites, who were Moses' body-
guard (see Exodus xxxii. 26); and the command of the "Lord" to
Moses to hang the heads of the people " before the Lord against the
sun," which is the emblem of this Lord, is unequivocal.
The nazars or prophets, as well as the Nazarenes, were an anti-
Bacchus caste, in so far that, in common with all the initiated prophets,
they held to the spirit of the symbolical religions and offered a strong
opposition to the idolatrous and exoteric practices of the dead letter.
Hence, the frequent stoning of the prophets by the populace and under
the leadership of those priests who made a profitable living out of the
popular superstitions. Otfried Miiller shows how much the Orphic Mys-
teries differed from the foprilar rites of Bacchus,* although the Orphikoi
are known to have followed the worship of Bacchus. The system of the
purest morality and Of a severe asceticism promulgated in the teachings
of Orpheus, and so strictly adhered to by his votaries, are incompatible
with the lasciviousness and gross immorality of the popular rites. The
fable of Aristceus pursuing Eurydike into the woods where a serpent occa-
sions her death, is a very plain allegory, which was in part explained at
the earliest times. Aristseus is brutal power, pursuing Eurydike, the
esoteric doctrine, into the woods where the serpent (emblem of every
sun-god, and worshipped under its grosser aspect even by the Jews)
kills her ; i.e., forces truth to become still more esoteric, and seek
shelter in the Underworld, which is not the hell of our theologians.
Moreover, the fate of Orpheus, torn to pieces by the Bacchantes, is
* Otfried Miiller : " Historical Greek Literature," pp. 230-240.
I30 ISIS UNVEILED.
another allegory to show that the gross and popular rites are always
more welcome than divine but simple truth, and proves the great diflfer-
ence that must have existed between the esoteric and the popular wor-
ship. As the poems of both Orpheus and Musfeus were said to have been
lost since the earliest ages, so that neither Plato nor Aristotle recognized
anything authentic in the poems extant in their time, it is difficult to say with
precision what constituted their peculiar rites. Still we have the oral tra-
dition, and every infei^ence to draw therefrom ; and this tradition points to
Orpheus as having brought his doctrines from India. As one whose
religion was that of the oldest Magians — hence, that to which belonged
the initiates of all countries, beginning with Moses, the " sons of the
Prophets," and the ascetic nazars (who must not be confounded with
those against whom thundered Hosea and other prophets) to the Essenes.
This latter sect were Pythagoreans before they rather degenerated, than
became perfected in their system by the Buddhist missionaries, whom
Pliny tells us established themselves on the shores of the Dead Sea, ages
before his time, '■'■per sceculorum millia." But if, on the one hand, these
Buddhist monks were the first to establish monastic communities and in-
culcate the strict observance of dogmatic conventual rule, on the other
they were also the first to enforce and popularize those stern virtues so
exemplified by Sakya-muni, and which were previously exercised only in
isolated cases of well-known philosophers and their followers ; virtues
preached two or three centuries later by Jesus, practiced by a few Chris-
tian ascetics, and gradually abandoned, and even entirely forgotten by
the Christian Church.
The initiated nazars had ever held to this rule, which had to be fol-
lowed before them by the adepts of every age ; and the disciples of
John were but a dissenting branch of the Essenes. Therefore, we cannot
well confound them with all the nazars spoken of in the Old Testament,
and who are accused by Hosea with having separated or consecrated
themselves to Bosheth n»2 (see Hebrew text) ; which implied the great-
est possible abomination. To infer, as some critics and theologians do,
that it means to separate one's self to chastity or continence, is either to
advisedly pervert the true meaning, or to be totally ignorant of the
Hebrew language. The eleventh verse of the first chapter of Micah
half explains the word in its veiled translation : " Pass ye away, thou
inhabitant of Saphir, etc.," and in the original text the word is Bosheth.
Certainly neither Baal, nor lahoh Kadosh, with his Kadeshim, was a god
of ascetic virtue, albeit the Septuaginia terms them, as well as the galli
— the perfected priests — TereXeo-yuti-ous, the initiated and the consecrated.*
See " Movers," p. 6S3.
THE NAZARS AND NAZIREATES. 13I
The great Sod of the Kadeshim, translated in Psalm Ixxxix. 7, by
"assembly of the saints," was anything but a mystery of tl^^e '■'■sancti-
fied" in the sense given to the latter word by Webster.
The Nazireate sect existed long before the laws of Moses, and origin-
ated among people most inimical to the "cliosen" ones of Israel, viz.,
the people of Galilee, the ancient oUa-podrida of idolatrous nations,
where was built Nazara, the present Nazareth. It is in Nazara that the
ancient Nazori'a or Nazireates held their " Mysteries of Life " or " assem-
blies," as the word now stands in the translation,* which were but the
secret mysteries of initiation, f utterly distinct in their practical form
from the popular M\steries which were held at Byblus in honor of Adonis.
While the true initiates of the ostracised Galilee were worshipping the
true God and enjoying transcendent visions, what were the "chosen"
ones about ? Ezekiel tells it to us (chap, viii) when, in describing what
he saw, he says that the form of a hand took him by a lock of his head
and transported him from Chaldea unto Jerusalem. "And there stood
seventy men of the senators of the house of Israel. . . . ' Son of man,
hast thou seen what the ancients ... do in the dark ? ' " inquires the
" Lord." " At the door of the house of the Lord . . . behold there sat
women weeping for Taiiimuz " (Adonis). We really cannot suppose that
the Pagans have ever surpassed the " chosen" people in certain shameful
abominations of which their own prophets accuse them so profusely. To
admit this truth, one hardly needs even to be a Hebrew scholar ; let him
read the Bible in English and meditate over the language of the " holy"
prophets.
This accounts for the hatred of the later Nazarenes for the orthodox
Jews — followers of the exoteric Mosaic Law — who are ever taunted by
this sect with being the worshippers of lurbo-Adunai, or Lord Bacchus.
Passing under the disguise of Adoni-Iaclwh (original text, Isaiah Ixi. i),
lahoh and Lord Sabaoth, the Baal-Adonis, or Bacchus, worshipped in
the groves and public sods or Mysteries, under the poUshing hand of Ezra
becomes finally the later-vowelled Adonai of the Massorah — the One
and Supreme God of the Christians !
" Thou shalt not worship the Sun who is named Adunai, says the
Codex of the Nazarenes ; whose name is also Kadush \ and El-El. This
Adunai will elect to himself a nation and congregate in crowds (his wor-
ship will be exoteric) . . . Jerusalem will become the refuge and city of
the Abortive, who shall perfect themselves (circumcise) with a sword
. . . and shall adore Adunai." §
* " Codex Nazarasus," ii., 305. f See Lucian : " De Syria Dea."
^:See Psalm Lxx.xix. 18. § " Codex Nazarxus," i. 47.
132 ISIS UNVEILED.
The oldest Nazarenes, who were the descendants of the Scripture
iiazars, and whose last prominent leader was John the Baptist, although
never very orthodox in the sight of the scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem
were, nevertheless, respected and left unmolested. Even Herod '-feared
the multitude " because they regarded John as a prophet {Matthew xiv.
5). But the followers of Jesus evidently adhered to a sect which became
a still more exasperating thorn in their side. It appeared as a heresy
within another heresy ; for while the nazars of the olden times, the
" Sons of the Prophets," were Chaldean kabalists, the adepts of the new
dissenting sect showed themselves reformers and innovators from the
first. The great similitude traced by some critics between the rites and
observances of the earliest Christians and those of the Essenes may be
accounted for without the slightest difficulty. The Essenes, as we re-
marked just now, were the converts of Buddhist missionaries who had
overrun Egypt, Greece, and even Judea at one time, since the reign of
Asoka the zealous propagandist ; and while it is evidently to the Essenes
that belongs the honor of having had the Nazarene reformer, Jesus, as
a pupil, still the latter is found disagreeing with his early teachers on
several questions of formal observance. He cannot strictly be called
an Essene, for reasons which we will indicate further on, neither was he
a nazar, or Nazaria of the older sect. What Jesus was, may be found in
the Codex Nazarizus, in the unjust accusations of the Bardesanian Gnos-
tics.
" Jesu is Nebu, the false Messiah, the destroyer of the old orthodox
religion," says the Codex. * He is the founder of the sect of the new
nazars, and, as the words clearly imply, a follower of the Buddhist
doctrine. In Hebrew the word naba ttas means to speak of inspiration ;
and las is nebo, a god of wisdom. But Nebo is also Mercury, and Mer-
cury is Buddha in the Hindu monogram of planets. Moreover, we find
the Talmudists holding that Jesus was inspired by the genius of Mer-
cury, f
The Nazarene reformer had undoubtedly belonged to one of these
sects ; though, perhaps, it would be next to impossible to decide
absolutely which. But what is self-evident is that he preached the
philosophy of Buddha-Sakyamfini. Denounced by the later prophets,
cursed by the Sanhedrim, the nazars — they were confounded with others
of that name " who separated themselves unto that shame," J they were
secretly, if not openly persecuted by the orthodox synagogue. It be-
* Ibid. ; Norberg : " Onomasticon," 74.
f Alph. de Spire : " Fortalicium Fidei," ii., 2.
\ Hosea ix. 10.
BLUNDERS OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. I33
comes clear why Jesus was treated with such contempt from the first,
and deprecatingly called " the Galilean." Nathaniel inquires — " Can
tliere any good thing come out of Nazareth ? " {John i. 46) at the very
beginning of his career ; and merely because he knows him to be a
nazar. Does not this clearly hint, that even the older nazars were not
really Hebrew religionists, but rather a class of Chaldean theurgists ?
Besides, as the Niw Testament is noted for its mistranslations and trans-
parent falsifications of texts, we may justly suspect that the word Nazareth
was substituted for that of nasaria, or nozari. That it originally read
" Can any good thing come from a nozari, or Nazarene ; " a follower of
St. John the Baptist, with whom we see him associating from his first
appearance on the stage of action, after having been lost sight of for a
period of nearly twenty years. The blunders of the Old Testament ■i.-r^
as nothing to those of the gospels. Nothing shows better than these self-
evident contradictions the system of pious fraud upon which the super-
structure of the Messiahship rests. "This is Elias which was for to
come," says Matthew of John the Baptist, thus forcing an ancient kabal-
istic tradition into the frame of evidence (xi. 14). But when address-
ing the Baptist himself, they ask him {/ohni. 16), "Art thou Elias?"
" And he saith lam not / " Which knew best — John or his biographer ?
And which is divine revelation ?
The motive of Jesus was evidently like that of Gautama-Buddha, to
benefit humanity at large by producing a religious reform which should
give it a religion of pure ethics ; the true knowledge of God and nature
having remained until then solely in the hands of the esoteric sects, and
their adepts. As Jesus used oil and the Essenes never used aught but
pure water,* he cannot be called a strict Essene. On the other hand,
the Essenes were also " set apart ;" they were healers {assaya) and dwelt
in the desert as all ascetics did.
But although he did not abstain from wine he could have remained a
Nazarene all the same. For in chapter vi. of Numbers, we see that
after the priest has waved a part of the hair of a Nazorite for a wave-
offering before the Lord," "after that a Nazarene may drink wine"
(v. 20). The bitter denunciation by the reformer of the people who
would be satisfied with nothing is worded in the following exclamation :
"John came neither eating nor drinking and they say: 'He hath a
devil.' . . . The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say :
' Behold a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber.' " And yet he was an Essene
and Nazarene, for we not only find him sending a message to Herod, to
say that he was one of those who cast out demons, and who performed
* " The Essenes considered oil as a defilement," says Josephus: " Wars," ii., p. 7.
134 ISIS UNVEILED.
cures, but actually calling himself a prophet and declaring himself equal
to the other prophets. *
The author of Sod shows Matthew trying to connect the appella-
tion of Nazarene with a prophecy, f and inquires " Why then does
Matthew state that the prophet said he should be called NazariaV
Simply "because he belonged to that sect, and a prophecy would con-
firm his claims to the Messiahship. . . . Now it does not appear that
the prophets anywhere state that the Messiah will be called a Nazarene:'\
The fact alone that Matthew tries in the last verse of chapter ii. to
strengthen his claim that Jesus dwelt in Nazareth merely to fulfil a
prophecy, does more than weaken the argument, it upsets it entirely ; for
the first two chapters have sufficiently been proved later forgeries.
Baptism is one of the oldest rites and was practiced by all the nations
in their Mysteries, as sacred ablutions. Dunlap seems to derive the
name of the nazars from nazah, sprinkling ; Bahak-Zivo is the genius
who called the world into existence § out of the " dark water," say the
Nazarenes ; and Richardson's Persian, Arabic, and English Lexicon
asserts that the word Bahak means "raining." But the Bahak-Zivo of
the Nazarenes cannot be traced so easily to Bacchus, who " was the
rain-god," for the nazars were the greatest opponents of Bacchus-wor-
ship. " Bacchus is brought up by the Hyades, the rain-nymphs," says
Preller ; || who shows, furthermore, that f at the conclusion of the religious
Mysteries, the priests baptized (washed) their monuments and anointed
them with oil. All this is but a very indirect proof. The Jordan bap-
tism need not be shown a substitution for tlie exoteric Bacchic rites and
the libations in honor of Adonis or Adoni — whom the Nazarenes abhorred
— in order to prove it to have been a sect sprung from the " Mysteries"
of the " Secret Doctrine ; " and their rites can by no means be con-
founded with those of the Pagan populace, who had simply fallen into the
idolatrous and unreasoning faith of all plebeian multitudes. John was the
prophet of these Nazarenes, and in Galilee he was termed "the Saviour,"
but he was not the founder of that sect which derived its tradition from
the remotest Chaldeo-Akkadian theurgy.
" The early plebeian Israelites were Canaanites and Phoenicians, with
* Luke xiii. 32.
f Matthew ii. We must bear in mind that the Gospel according to Matthew in
the New Testament is not the original Gospel of the apostle of that name. The au-
thentic Evangel was for centuries in the possession of the Nazarenes and the Ebionites,
as we show further on the admission of St. Jerome himself, who confesses that he had
to ask permission of the Nazarenes to translate it.
X Dunlap : " Sod, the Son of the Man." § " Codex Nazarceus," vol. ii., p. 233.
II Preller : vol. i., p. 415. •[ Ibid., vol. i., p. 490.
VARIOUS MODES OF BAPTISM. 1 35
the same worship of the Phallic gods — Bacchus, Baal or Adon, lacchos
— lao or Jehovah ; " but even among them there had always been a
class of initiated adepts. Later, the character of this plebe was modified
by Assyrian conquests ; and, finally, the Persian colonizations superim-
posed the Pharisean and Eastern ideas and usages, from which the Old
Testament and the Mosaic institutes were derived. The Asmonean
priest-kings promulgated the canon of the Old Testament in contradis-
tinction to the Apocrypha or Secret Books of the Alexandrian Jews —
kabalists.* Till John Hyrcanus they were Asideans (Chasidim) and
Pharisees (Parsees), but then they became Sadducees or Zadokites — as-
serters of sacerdotal rule as contradistinguished from rabbinical. The
Pharisees were lenient and intellectual, the Sadducees, bigoted and cruel.
Says the Codex: "John, son of the AbaSaba-Zacharia, conceived
by his mother Anasabet in her hundredth year, had baptized for /i?;Yj'-/wf
years \ when Jesu Messias came to the Jordan to be baptized with John's
baptism. . . . But \l& ^'\}1 pervert John! s doctrine, (ihzx\^'^<g the baptism
of the Jordan, and perverting the sayings of justice." \
The baptism was changed from water to that of the Holy Ghost, un-
doubtedly in consequence of the ever-dominant idea of the Fathers to
institute a reform, and make the Christians distinct from St. John's
Nazarenes, the Nabatheans and Ebionites, in order to make room for
new dogmas. Not only do the Synoptics tell us that Jesus was baptizing
the same as John, but John's own disciples complained of it, though surely
Jesus cannot be accused of following a purely Bacchic rite. The paren-
thesis in verse 2d of John iv., "... though Jesus himself baptized not,"
is so clumsy as to show upon its face that it is an interpolation.
Matthew makes John say that he that should come after him would not
baptize them with water "but with the Holy Ghost and fire." Mark,
Luke, and John corroborate these words. Water, fire, and spirit, or Holy
Ghost, have all their origin in India, as we will show.
* The word Apocrypha was very erroneously adopted as doubtful and spurious.
The word means hidden and secret ; but that which is secret may be often more true
than that which is revealed.
f The statement, if reliable, would show that Jesus was between fifty and sixty years
old when baptized ; for the Gospels make him but a few months younger than John.
The kabalists say that Jesus was over forty years old when first appearing at the gates
of Jerusalem. The present copy of the *' Codex Nazar^us " is dated in the year 1042,
but Dunlap finds in Irenceus (2d century) quotations from and ample references to this
book. " The basis of the material common to Irenceus and the '' Codex Nazarasus"
must be at least as early as the first century," says the author in his preface to " Sod,
the Son of the Man," p. i.
X " Codex Nazarseus," vol. i., p. 109; Dunlap: Ibid., xxiv.
136 ISIS UNVEILED.
Now there is one very strange peculiarity about this sentence. It is
flatly denied in Acts xix. 2-5. ApoUos, a Jew of Alexandria, belonged
to the sect of St. John's disciples ; he had been baptized, and instructf;d
others in the doctrines of the Baptist. And yet when Paul, cleverly
profiting by his absence at Corinth, finds certain disciples of Apollos'
at Ephesus, and asks them whether they received the Holy Ghost,
he is naively answered, " We have not so much as heard whether
there be any Holy Ghost ! " "Unto what then were you baptized?"
he inquires. '■'■ Unto John' s baptisjn" they say. Then Paul is made to
repeat the words attributed to John by the Synoptics ; and these men
" were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus," exhibiting, moreover,
at the same instant, the usual polyglot gift which accompanies the descent
of the Holy Ghost.
How then ? St. John the Baptist, who is called the " precursor," that
" the prophecy might be fulfilled," the great prophet and martyr,
whose words ought to have had such an importance in the eyes of his
disciples, announces the " Holy Ghost " to his listeners ; causes crowds
to assemble on the shores of the Jordan, where, at the great ceremony
of Christ's baptism, the promised "Holy Ghost" appears within the
opened heavens, and the multitude hears the voice, and yet there are
disciples of St. John who have " never so much as heard whether there be
any Holy Ghost ! "
Verily the disciples who wrote the Codex Nazarmtcs were right. Only
it is not Jesus himself, but those who came after him, and who concocted
the Bible to suit themselves, that '■'■perverted John's doctrine, changed
the baptism of the Jordan, and perverted the sayings of justice."
It is useless to object that the present Codex was written centuries
after the direct apostles of John preached. So were our Gospels. When
this astounding interview of Paul with the " Baptists" took place, Barde-
sanes had not yet appeared among them, and the sect was not considered
a " heresy." Moreover, we are enabled to judge how little St. John's
promise of the "Holy Ghost," and the appearance of the "Ghost" him-
self, had affected his disciples, by the displeasure shown by them toward the
disciples of Jesus, and the kind of rivalry manifested from the first. Nav,
so httle is John himself sure of the identity of Jesus with the expected
Messiah, that after the famous scene of the baptism at the Jordan, and the
oral assurance by the Holy Ghost Himself that " This is my beloved Son"
{MattheTv iii. 17), we find "the Precursor," in Matthew xi., sending
two of his disciples from his prison to inquire of Jesus : " Art thou he
that should come, or do we look for another ! ! "
This flagrant contradiction alone ought to have long ago satisfied
reasonable minds as to the putative divine inspiration of the A'ew Testa-
JESUS A REFORMING NAZARIA. 1 37
inent. But we may offer another question : If baptism is the sign of
regeneration, and an ordinance instituted by Jesus, why do not Christians
now baptize as Jesus is here represented as doing, " with the Holy Ghost
and with fire," instead of following the custom of the Nazarenes? In
making these palpable interpolations, what possible motive could Irenseus
have had except to cause people to believe that the appellation of Naza-
rene, which Jesus bore, came only from his father's residence at Nazareth,
and not from his affihation with the sect of Nazaria, the healers ?
This expedient of Irenasus was a most unfortunate one, for from time
immemorial the prophets of old had been thundering against the baptism
of fire as practiced by their neighbors, which imparted the "spirit of
prophecy," or the Holy Ghost. But the case was desperate ; the Christians
were universally called Nazoreens and lessaens (according to Epiphanius),
and Christ simply ranked as a Jewish prophet and healer — so self styled,
so accepted by his own disciples, and so regarded by their followers. In
such a state of things there was no room for either a new hierarchy or a
new God-head; and since Irenseus had undertaken the business of man-
ufacturing both, he had to put together such materials as were available,
and fill the gaps with his own fertile inventions.
To assure ourselves that Jesus was a true Nazarene — albeit with ideas
of a new reform — we must not search for the proof in the translated
Gospels, but in such original versions as are accessible. Tischendorf,
ill his translation from the Greek o{ Luke'w. 34, has it " lesou Nazarene ;"
and in the Syriac it reads " lasoua, thou Nazaria." Thus, if we take in
account all that is puzzling and incomprehensible in the four Gospels,
revised and corrected as they now stand, we shall easily see for ourselves
that the true, original Christianity, such as was preached by Jesus, is to
be found only in the so-called Syrian heresies. Only from them can we
extract any clear notions about what was primitive Christianity.
Such was the faith of Paul, when Tertullus the orator accused the apostle
before the governor Felix. What he complained of was that they had
found " that man a mover of sedition ... a ringleader of the sect of the
Nazarenes ;" * and, while Paul denies every other accusation, he con-
fesses that " after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of
my fathers." f This confession is a whole revelation. It shows : i,
that Paul admitted belonging to the sect of the Nazarenes ; 2, that he
worshipped the God of his fathers, not the trinitarian Christian God, of
whom he knows nothing, and who was not invented until after his death;
and, 3, that this unlucky confession satisfactorily explains why the \.xe.2^-
im, Acts of the Apostles, together with John's Hevelation, vihich atone
* Acts xxiv. 5. \ Ibid., 14.
138 ISIS UNVEILED.
period was utterly rejected, were kept out of the canon of the New Testa-
ment for such a length of tmie.
At Byblos, the neophytes as well as the hierophants were, after par-
ticipating in the Mysteries, obliged to fast and remain in solitude for
some time. There was strict fasting and preparation before as well as
after the Bacchic, Adonian, and Eleusinian orgies ; and Herodotus hints,
with fear and veneration about the lake of Bacchus, in which " they
(the priests) made at night exhibitions of his life and sufferings."* In
the Mithraic sacrifices, during the initiation, a preHminary scene of death
was simulated by the neophyte, and it preceded the scene showing him
himself " being born again by the rite of baptism:' A portion of tiiis
ceremony is still enacted in the present day by the Masons, when the
neophyte, as the Grand Master Hiram Abiff, hes dead, and is raised by
the strong grip of the Hon's paw.
The priests were circumcised. The neophyte could not be initiated
without having been present at the solemn Mysteries of the Take.
The Nazarenes were baptized in the Jordan ; and could not be baptized
elsewhere ; they were also circumcised, and had to fast before as well as
after the purification by baptism. Jesus is said to have fasted in the
wilderness for forty days, immediately after his baptism. To the present
day, there is outside every temple in India, a lake, stream, or a reservoir
full of holy water, in which the Brahmans and the Hindu devotees bathe
daily. Such places of consecrated water are necessary to every temple.
The bathing festivals, or baptismal rites, occur twice every year ; in Octo-
ber and April. Each lasts ten days ; and, as in ancient Egypt and Greece,
the statues of their gods, goddesses, and idols are immersed in water
by the priests ; the object of the ceremony being to wash away from
them the sins of their worshippers which they have taken upon them-
selves, and which pollute them, until washed off by holy water.
During the Aratty, the bathing ceremony, the principal god of every
temple is carried in solemn procession to be baptized in the sea. The
Brahman priests, carrying the sacred images, are followed generally by
the Maharajah — barefoot, and nearly naked. Three times the priests
enter the sea ; the third time they carry with them the whole of the
images. Holding them up with prayers repeated by the whole congre-
gation, the Chief Priest plunges the statues of the gods thrice in the
name of the mystic trinity, into the water ; after which they are purified.f
The Orphic hymn calls water the greatest purifier of men and gods.
* *' Herodotus," U. , p. 170.
f Tlie Hindu High Pontiff — the Chief of the Namburis, who lives in the Cochin
Land, is generally present during these festivals of "Holy Water" immersions. lie
travels sometimes to very great distances to preside over the ceremony.
ADONIS WORSHIP AT BETHLEHEM. 1 39
Our Nazarene sect is known to have existed some 150 years B.C.,
and to have lived on the banks of the Jordan, and on the eastern shore
of the Dead Sea, according to Phny and Josephus. * But in King's
Gnostics, we find quoted another statement by Josephus from verse 13,
which says that the Essenes had been established on the shores of
the Dead Sea "for thousands of ages" before Pliny's time, f
According to Munk the term " Galilean " is nearly synonymous with
that of " Nazarene ; " furthermore, he shows the relations of the former
with the Gentiles as very intimate. The populace had probably grad-
ualVy adopted, in their constant intercourse, certain rites and modes of
worship of the Pagans ; and the scorn with which the Galileans were
regarded by the orthodox Jews is attributed by him to the same cause.
Their friendly relations had certainly led them, at a later period, to
adopt the " Adonia," or the sacred rites over the body of the lamented
Adonis, as we find Jerome fairly lamenting this circumstance. " Over
Bethlehem," he says, " the grove of Tharamuz, that is of Adonis, was
casting its shadow ! And in the groito where formerly the infant Jesus
cried, the lover of Venus was being mourned." \
Mt was after the rebellion of Bar Cochba, that the Roman Emperor
estabhshed the Mysteries of Adonis at the Sacred Cave in Bethlehem ;
and who knows but this was the petra or rock-temple on which the
church was built ? The Boar of Adonis was placed above the gate of
Jerusalem which looked toward Bethlehem.
Munk says that the " Nazireate was an institution established before
the laws of Musah. " § This is evident ; as we find this sect not only
mentioned but minutely described in Numbers (chap. vi.). In the
commandment given in this chapter to Moses by the " Lord," it is easy
to recognize the rites and laws of the Priests of Adonis. || The absti-
nence and purity strictly prescribed in both sects are identical. Both
* " Ant. Jud. ," xiii., p. g ; xv., p. 10.
f King thinks it a great exaggeration and is inclined to believe that these Essenes,
who were most undoubtedly Buddhist monks, were " merely a continuation of the
associations known as Sons of the Prophets." " The Gnostics and their Remains,"
p. 22.
I St. Jerome: "Epistles," p. 49 (ad. Poulmam) ; see Dunlap's "Spirit-His-
tory," p. 218.
§ ■' Munk," p. 169.
I Bacchus and Ceres — or the mystical Wine and Bread, used during the Mysteries,
become, in the " Adonia," Adonis and Venus. Movers shows that " lao is Bacchus,"
p. 550; and his authority is Lydics de Mens (^S-J^) ; " Spir. Hist.," p. 195. /an
is a Sun-god and the Jewish Jehovah ; the intellectual or Central Sun of the kabal-
ists. See Julian in Proclus. But this " lao" is not the Mystery-god.
140 ISIS UNVEILED.
allowed their hair to grow long * as the Hindu ccenobites and fakirs do
to this day, while other castes shave their hair and abstain on certain
days from wine. The prophet Elijah, a Nazarene, is described in 2
Kings, and by Josephus as " a hairy man girt wit4i a girdle of leather." f
And John the Baptist and Jesus are both represented as wearing very
long hair. \ John is " clothed with camel's hair" and wearing a girdle
of hide, and Jesus in a long garment "without any seams" . . . "and
very white, like snow," says Mark ; the very dress worn by the Nazarene
Priests and the Pythagorean and Buddhist Essenes, as described by
Josephus.
If we carefully trace the terms nazar, and nazaret, throughout the
best known works of ancient writers, we will meet them in connection
with "Pagan" as well as Jewish adepts. Thus, Alexander Polyhistor
says of Pythagoras that he was a disciple of the Assyrian Nazaret, whom
some suppose to be Ezekiel. Diogenes Laertius states most positively
that Pythagoras, after being initiated into all the Mysteries of the Greeks
and barbarians, " went into Egypt and afterward visited the Chaldeans
and Magi ; " and Apuleius maintains that it was Zoroaster who instructed
Pythagoras.
Were we to suggest that the Hebrew nazars, the railing prophets of
the " Lord," had been initiated into the so-called Pagan mysteries, and
belonged (or at least a majority of them) to the same Lodge or circle of
adepts as those who were considered idolaters ; that their " circle of
prophets " was but a collateral branch of a secret association, which we
may well term " international," what a visitation of Christian wrath would
we not incur ! And still, the case looks strangely suspicious.
Let us first recall to our mind that which Ammianus Marcellinus, and
other historians relate of Darius Hystaspes. The latter, penetrating into
Upper India (Bactriana), learned pure rites, and stellar and cosniical
sciences from Brachmans, and communicated them to the Magi. Now
Hystaspes is shown in history to have crushed the Magi ; and intro-
duced— or rather forced upon them — the pure religion of Zoroaster, that
of Ormazd. How is it, then, that an inscription is found on the tomb
* Josephus: "Ant. Jud.," iv., p. 4.
flbid. , ix. ; 2 Kings, i. 8.
X In relation to the well-known fact of Jesus wearing his hair long, and being always
so represented, it becomes quite startling to find how little the unknown Editor of the
" Acts " knew about the Apostle Paul, since he makes him say in i Corinthians xi. 14,
" Doth not Nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto
Aim ? " Certainly Paul could never have said such a thing ! Therefore, if the pas-
sage is genuine, Paul knew nothing of the prophet whose doctrines he had embraced
and for which he died ; and if false — how much more reliable is what remains ?
WHAT PHILOLOGY PROVES ABOUT ZOROASTER. 141
of Darius, stating that he was " teacher and hierophant of magic, or
magianism ? " Evidently there must be some historical mistake, and
history confesses it. In this imbroglio of names, Zoroaster, the teacher
and instructor of Pythagoras, can be neither the Zoroaster nor Zarathustra
who instituted sun-worship among the Parsees ; nor he who appeared at
the court of Gushtasp (Hystaspes) the alleged father of Darius; nor,
again, the Zoroaster who placed his magi above the kings themselves.
The oldest Zoroastrian scripture — the Avesta — does not betray the
slightest traces of the reformer having ever been acquainted with any of
the nations that subsequently adopted his mode of worship. He seems
utterly ignorant of the neighbors of Western Iran, the Medes, the Assyri-
ans, the Persians, and others. If we had no other evidences of the great
antiquity of the Zoroastrian religion than the discovery of the blunder
committed by some scholars in our own century, who regarded King
Vistaspa (Gushtasp) as identical with the father of Darius, whereas the
Persian tradition points directly to Vistaspa as to the last of the line of
Kaianian princes who ruled in Bactriana, it ought to be enough, for the
Assyrian conquest of Bactriana took place 1,200 years B.C.*
Therefore, it is but natural that we should see in the appellation of
Zoroaster not a name but a generic term, whose significance must be left
to philologists to agree upon. Guru, in Sanscrit, is a spiritual teacher ;
and as Zuruastara means in the same language he who worships the sun,
why is it impossible, that by some natm-al change of language, due to the
great number of different nations which were converted to the sun
worship, the word guru-astara, the spiritual teacher of sun-worship, so
closely resembling the name of the founder of this religion, became grad-
ually transformed in its primal form of Zuryastara or Zoroaster ? The
opinion of the kabalists is that there was but one Zarathustra and many
guruastars or spiritual teachers, and that one such o'?/r«, or rather huru-
aster, as he is called in the old manuscripts, was the instructor of Pythag-
oras. To philology and our readers we leave the explanation for what it
is worth. Personally we believe in it, as we credit on this subject kab-
alistic tradition far more than the explanation of scientists, no two of
whom have been able to agree up to the present year.
Aristotle states that Zoroaster lived 6,000 years before Christ ; Her-
mippus of Alexandria, who is said to have read the genuine books of the
Zoroastrians, although Alexander the Great is accused of having destroyed
* Max Miiller has sufficiently proved the case in his lecture on the " Zend-Avesta."
He calls Gushtasp "the mythical pupil of Zoroaster." Mythical, perhaps, only be-
cause the period in which he lived and learned with Zoroaster is too remote to allow
our modern science to speculate upon it with any certainty.
142 ISIS UNVEILED.
them, shows Zoroaster as the pupil of Azonak (Azon-ach, or the Azon-
God) and as having lived 5,000 years before the fall of Troy. Er or Eros,
whose vision is related by Plato in the Republic, is declared by Clement
to have been Zordusth. While the Magus who dethroned Cambyses
was a Mede, and Darius proclaims that he put down the Magian rites to
establish those of Ormazd, Xanthus of Lydia declares Zoroaster to have
been the chief of the Magi !
Wliich of them is wrong ? or are they all right, and only the modern
interpreters fail to explain the difference between the Reformer and his
apostles and followers ? This blundering of our commentators reminds us
of that of Suetonius, who mistook the Christians for one Christo.s, or
Crestos, as he spells it, and assured his readers that Claudius banished
him for the disturbance he made among the Jews.
Finally, and to return again to the nazars, Zaratus is mentioned by
Pliny in the following words : " He was Zoroaster and Nazaret." As
Zoroaster is called princeps of the Magi, and nazar signifies separated or
consecrated, is it not a Hebrew rendering of mag ? Volney believes so.
The Persian word Na-zaruan means millions of years, and refers to the
Chaldean "Ancient of Days." Hence the name of the Nazars or Naza-
renes, who were consecrated to the service of the Supreme one God, the
kabalistic En-Soph, or the Ancient of Days, the "Aged of the aged."
But the word nazar may also be found in India. In Hindustani
nazar is sight, internal or supernatural vision ; nazar band-i means fas-
cination, a mesmeric or magical spell ; and nazaran is the word for sight-
seeing or vision.
Professor Wilder thinks that as the word Zeruana is nowhere to be
found in the Avesta, but only in the later Parsi books, it came from the
Magians, who composed the Persian sacred caste in the Sassan period,
but were originally Assyrians. " Turan, of the poets," he says, " I con-
sider to be Aturia, or Assyria ; and that Zohak (Az-dahaka, Dei-okes, or
Astyages), the Serpent-king, was Assyrian, Median, and Babylonian —
when those countries were united."
This opinion does not, however, in the least implicate our statement
that the secret doctrines of the Magi, of the pre-Vedic Buddhists, of the
hierophants of the EgyjHian Thoth or Hermes, and of the adepts of what-
ever age and nationality, including the Chaldean kabahsts and the Jewish
nazars, were identical from the beginning. When we use the term Bud-
dhists, we do not mean to imply by it either the exoteric Buddhism insti-
tuted by the followers of Gautama-Buddha, nor the modern Buddhistic
religion, but the secret philosophy of Sakyamuni, which in its essence is
certainly identical with the ancient wisdom-religion of the sanctuary, the
pre Vedic Brahmanism. The "schism" of Zoroaster, as it is called, is a
ZARATHUSTRA AND THE ZOROASTRIANS. I43
direct proof of it. For it was no schism, strictl)' speaking, but merely a
partially-public exposition of strictly monotheistic religious truths, hitherto
taught only in the sanctuaries, and that he had learned from the Brah-
mans. Zoroaster, the primeval institutor of sun-worship, cannot be called
the founder of the dualistic system ; neither was he the first to teach the
unity of God, for he taught but what he had learned himself with the
Brahmans. And that Zarathustra and his followers, the Zoroastrians,
" had been settled in India before they immigrated into Persia," is also
proved by Max Miiller. " That the Zoroastrians and their ancestors
started from India," he says, " during the Vaidik period, can be proved
as distinctly as that the inhabitants of Massilia started from Greece.
. . . Many of the gods of the Zoroastrians come out ... as mere reflec-
tions and deflections of the primitive and authentic gods of the Veda." *
If, now, we can prove — and we can do so on the evidence of the
Kabala and the oldest traditions of the wisdom-religion, the philosophy
of the -old sanctuaries — that all these gods, whether of the Zoroastrians
or of the Veda, are but so many personated occult powers of nature, the
faithful servants of the adepts of secret wisdom — Magic — we are on
secure ground.
Thus, whether we say that Kabalisra and Gnosticism proceeded from
Masdeanism or Zoroastrianism, it is all the same, unless we meant the
exoteric worship — which we do not. Likewise, and in this sense, we may
echo King, the author of the Gnostics, and several other archceologists,
and maintain that both the former proceeded from Buddhism, at once
the simplest and most satisfying of philosophies, and which resulted
in one of the purest religions of the world. It is only a matter of chron-
ology to decide which of these religions, differing but in external form,
is the oldest, therefore the least adulterated. But even this bears but very
indirectly, if at all, on the subject we treat of. Already some time before
our era, the adepts, except in India, had ceased to congregate in large
communities ; but whether among the Essenes, or the Neo-platonists, or,
again, among the innumerable struggling sects born but to die, the same
doctrines, identical in substance and spirit, if not always in form, are
encountered. By Buddhism, therefore, we mean that religion signifying
literally the doctrine of wisdom, and which by many ages antedates the
metaphysical philosophy of Siddhirtha Sakyamuni.
After nineteen centuries of enforced eliiuinations from the canonical
books of every sentence which might put the investigator on the true path,
it has become very difficult to show, to the satisfaction of exact science,
that the " Pagan " worshippers of Adonis, their neighbors, the Naza-
♦ Max Miiller : " Zend Avesta," 83.
144 ISIS UNVEILED.
renes, and the Pythagorean Essenes, the healing Therapeutes,* the Ebio-
nites, and other sects, were all, with very slight differences, followers of
the ancient theurgic Mysteries. And yet by analogy and a close study
of the hidden sense of their rites and customs, we can trace their kin-
ship.
It was given to a contemporary of Jesus to become the means of
pointing out to posterity, by his interpretation of the oldest literature of
Israel, how deeply the kabalistic philosophy agreed in its esoterism with
that of the profoundest Greek thinkers. This contemporary, an ardent
disciple of Plato and Aristotle, was Philo Judsus. While explaining the
Mosaic books according to a purely kabalistic method, he is the famous
Hebrew writer whom Kingsley calls the Father of New Platonism.
It is evident that Philo's Therapeutes are a branch of the Essenes.
Their name indicates it — 'Etrcraroi, Asaya, physician. Hence, the con-
tradictions, forgeries, and other desperate expedients to reconcile the
prophecies of the Jewish canon with the Galilean nativity and god-
ship.
Luke, wlio was a physician, is designated in the Syriac texts as
Asaia, the Essaian or Essene. Josephus and Philo Judaeus have suf-
ficiently described this sect to leave no doubt in our mind that the Naza-
rene Reformer, after having received his education in their dwellings in
the desert, and been duly initiated in the Mysteries, preferred the free
and independent life of a wandering Nazaria, and so separated or ina-
zarenized himself from them, thus becoming a travelling Therapeute, a
Nazaria, a healer. Every Therapeute, before quitting his community,
had to do the same. Both Jesus and St. John the Baptist preached the
end of the Age ; f which proves their knowledge of the secret computa-
tion of the priests and kabalists, who with the chiefs of the Essene com-
munities alone had the secret of the duration of the cycles. The latter
were kabalists and theurgists ; " they had their mystic books, and pre-
dicted future events," says Munk. J
Diinlap, whose personal researches seem to have been quite success-
ful in that direction, traces the Essenes, Nazarenes, Dositheans, and some
other sects as having all existed before Christ : " They rejected pleas-
ures, despised riches, loved one another, and more than other sects, neg-
* Philo : " De Vita. Contemp."
\ Tlie real meaning of the division into ages is esoteric and Buddhistic. So httle
did the uninitiated Christians understand it that they accepted the words of Jesus liter-
ally and firmly l^elieved that he meant the end of the world. There had been many
prophecies about the forthcoming age. Virgil, in the fourth Eclogue, mentions the
Metatron — a new offspring, with whom the iron age shall end and s. golden one arise.
X " Palestine," p. 525, et seq.
THE PYTHAGOREAN UTTERANCES OF JESUS. 145
lected wedlock, deeming the conquest of the passions to be virtuous," *
he says.
These are all virtues preached by Jesus ; and if we are to take the
gospels as a standard of truth, Christ was a metempsychosist " or i-e-in-
carnationist — again like these same Essenes, whom we see were Pythag-
oreans in all their doctrines and habits. lamblichus asserts that the
Samian philosopher spent a certain time at Carmel with them, f In his
discourses and sermons, Jesus always spoke in parables and used meta-
phors with his audience. This habit was again that of the Essenians
and the Nazarene^ ; the Galileans who dwelt in cities and villages were
never known to use such allegorical language. Indeed, some of his
disciples being Galileans as well as himself, felt even surprised to find
him using with the people such a form of expression. " Why speakest
thou unto them in parables ? " J they often inquired. " Because, it is
given unto you to know the j\[ysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to
them it is not given," was the reply, which was that of an initiate.
" Therefore, I speak unto them in parables ; because, they seeing, see
not, and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand." Moreover,
we find Jesus expressing his thoughts still clearer — and in sentences
which are purely Pythagorean — when, during the Sermon on the Mount,
he says :
" Give ye not that which is sacred to the dogs,
Neither cast ye your pearls before swine ;
Eor the swine will tread them under their feet
And the dogs will turn and rend you."
Professor A. Wilder, the editor of Taylor's Eleusinian Mysteries,
observes " a like disposition on the part of Jesus and Paul to classify
their doctrines as esoteric and exoteric, the Mysteries of the Kingdom of
God ' for the apostles,' and ' parables ' for the multitude. ' AVe speak
wisdom,' says Paul, 'among them that are perfect' (or initiated)." §
In the Eleusinian and other Mysteries the participants were always
divided into two classes, the neophytes and the perfect. The former
were sometimes admitted to the preliminary initiation : the dramatic
performance of Ceres, or the soul, descending to Hades. | But it was
* "Sod," vol. ii.. Preface, p. xi.
\ " Vit. Pythag." Munk derives the name of the lessaiis or Essenes from the Syriac
Asaya — the healers, or physicians, thus showing their identity with the Egyptian Thera-
peutae. " Palestine," p. 515.
X Matthew xiii. 10.
§ " Eleusinian Mysteries," p. 15.
1 This descent to Hades signified the inevitable fate of each soul to be united for a
time with a terrestrial body. This union, or dark prospect for the soul to find itself
146 ISIS UNVEILED.
given only to the "perfect" to enjoy and learn the Mysteries of the
divine Elysium, the celestial abode of the blessed ; this Elysium being
unquestionably the same as the "Kingdom of Heaven." To contradict
or reject the above, would be merely to shut one's eyes to the truth.
The narrative of the Apostle Paul, m his second Epistle to the Cor-
inthians (xii. 3, 4), has struck several scholars, well versed in the
descriptions of the mystical rites of tlie initiation given by some
classics, as alluding most undoubtedly to the final Epopteia* " I knew
a certain man — whether in body or outside of body, I know not : God
knoweth — who was rapt into Paradise, and heard things ineffable appijra
pr^/xara, which it is not lawful for a man to repeat." These words have
rarely, so far as we know, been regarded by commentators as an
allusion to the beatific visions of a^n " initiated" seer. But the phrase-
ology is unequivocal. These things " which it is not lawful to repeat"
are hinted at in the same words, and the reason for it assigned, is the
same as that which we find repeatedly expressed by Plato, Proclus,
lanibHchus, Herodotus, and other classics. "We speak wisdom only
among them who are perfect," says Paul ; the plain and undeniable
translation of the sentence being : " We speak of the profounder (or
final) esoteric doctrines of the Mysteries (which were denominated wis-
dom) only among them who are initiated." f So in relation to the "man
who was rapt into Paradise " — and who was evidently Paul himself J—
the Christian word Paradise having replaced that of Elysium. To
complete the proof, we might recall the words of Plato, given else-
where, which show that before an initiate could see the gods in their
purest light, he had to become liberated horn his body ; i.e., to separate
his astral soul from it. § Apuleius also describes his initiation into the
Mysteries in the same way : " I approached the confines of death ; and,
having trodden on the threshold of Proserpina, returned, having been
carried through all the elements. In the depths of midnight I saw the
sun glittering with a splendid light, together with the infernal and super-
nal gods, and to these divinities approaching, I paid the tribute of de-
vout adoration." ||
imprisoned within the dark tenement of a body, was considered by all the ancient
philosophers and is even by the modern Buddhists, as a punishment.
* " Eleusinian Mysteries," p. 49, foot-note.
f " The profound or esoteric doctrines of the ancients were denominated wisdom,
and afterward philosophy, and also the gnosis^or knowledge. They related to the human
soul, its divine parentage, its supposed degradation from its high estate by becoming
connected with "generation" or the physical world, its onward progress and restora-
tion to God by regenerations or . . . transmigrations." Ibid, p. 2, foot-note.
X Cyril of Jerusalem asserts it. See vi. 10.
§ " Pha;drus," 64. 1 " The Golden Ass," xL
THE KABALISM OF THE APOCALYPSE. 147
Thus, in common with Pythagoras and other hierophant reformers,
Jesus divided his teachings into exoteric and esoteric. Following
faithfully the Pythagoreo-Essenean ways, he never sat at a meal without
saying "grace." "The priest prays before his meal," says Josephus,
describing the Essenes. Jesus also divided his followers into " neo-
jihytes," "brethren," and the "perfect," if we may judge by the differ-
ence he made between them. But his career at least as a public Rabbi,
was of a too short duration to allow him to estabUsh a regular school of
his own ; and with the exception, perhaps, of John, it does not seem that
he had initiated any other apostle. The Gnostic amulets and tahsmans are
mostly the emblems of the apocalyptic allegories. The " seven vowels"
are closely related to the " seven seals ; " and the mystic title Abraxas,
partakes as much of the compositian of Shem Hamphirosh, " the holy
word" or ineffable name, as the name called : The word of God, that
" no man kne"v but he himself^' * as John expresses it.
It would be difficult to escape from the well-adduced proofs that the
Apocalypse is the production of an initiated kabalist, when this Revelation
presents whole* passages taken from the Books of Enoch and Daniel,
which latter is in itself an abridged imitation of the former ; and when,
furthermore, we ascertain that the Ophite Gnostics who rejected the Old-
Testament entirely, as " emanating from an inferior being (Jehovah),"
accepted the most ancient prophets, such as Enoch, and deduced the
strongest support from this book for their religious tenets, the demonstra-
tion becomes evident. We will show further how closely related are all
these doctrines. Besides, there is the history of Domitian's persecutions
of magicians and philosophers, which affords as good a proof as any that
John was generally considered a kabalist. As the apostle was included
among the number, and, moreover, conspicuous, the imperial edict ban-
ished him not only from Rome, but even from the continent. It was
not the Christians whom — confounding them with the Jews, as some his-
torians will have it — the emperor persecuted, but the astrologers and kab-
alists. f
The accusations against Jesus of practicing the magic of Egypt were
numerous, and at one time universal, in the towns where he was known.
The Pharisees, as claimed in the Bible, had been the first to flinsf it in his
* "Apocalypse," xix. 12.
f See Suet, in "Vita. Eutrop.," 7. It is neither cruelty, nor an insane indulgence
in it, which shows this emperor in history as passing his time in catching flies and trans-
piercing them with a golden bodkin, but religious superstition. The Jewish astrolo-
gers had predicted to him that he had provoked the wrath of Beelzebub, the " Lord
of the fiies," and would perish miserably through the revenge of the dark god of
Ekron, and die like King Ahaziali, because he persecuted the Jews.
148 ISIS UNVEILED.
face, although Rabbi Wise considers Jesns himself a Pharisee. The Tal-
mud certainly points to James the Just as one of that sect. * But these
partisans are known to have always stoned every prophet who denounced
their evil ways, and it is not on this fact that vi'e base our assertion.
These accused him of sorcery, and of driving out devils by Beelzebub,
their prince, with as much justice as later the Catholic clergy had to
accuse of the same more than one innocent martyr. But Justin Martyr
states on better authority that the men of his time who were ?iot Jews
asserted that the miracles of Jesus were performed by magical art —
/j-ayiKij (j>avTa(Tia — the very expression used by the skeptics of those
days to designate the feats of thaumaturgy accomplished in the Pagan
temples. " They even ventured to call him a magician and a deceiver of
the people," complains the martyr, f In the Gospel of Nicodemus (the
Acta Pilate), the Jews bring the same accusation before Pilate. " Did
we not tell thee he was a magician ? " | Celsus speaks of the same charge,
and as a Neo-platonist believes in it. § The Talmudic literature is full
of the most minute particulars, and their greatest accusation is that "Jesus
could fly as easily in the air as others could walk." || St. 'Austin asserted
that it was generally believed that he had been initiated in Egypt, and
that he wrote books concerning magic, which he delivered to John. ^
There was a work called Magia Jesu Chrisfi, which was attributed to
Jesus ** himself. In the Clementine Recognitions the charge is brought
against Jesus that he did not perform his miracles as a Jewish prophet,
but as a magician, i.e., an initiate of the " heathen " temples. \\
It was usual then, as it is now, among the intolerant clergy of
opposing religions, as well as among the lower classes of society, and
even among those patricians who, for various reasons had been excluded
from any participation of the Mysteries, to accuse, sometimes, the highest
hierophants and adepts of sorcery and black magic. So Apuleius, who
* We believe that it was the Sadducees and not the Pharisees who crucified Jesus.
They were Zadokites — partisans of the house of Zadok, or the sacerdotal family. In
the " Acts" the apostles were said to be persecuted by the Sadducees, but never by the
Pharisees. In fact, the latternever persecuted any one. They had the scribes, rabbis,
and learned men in their numbers, and were not, like the Sadducees, jealous of their
order.
j- ■' Dial.," p. 69.
IFabricius: "Cod. Apoc, N. T.," i., 243; Tischendorf: " Evang. Ap.," p.
214.
g Origen : " Cont. Cels.," 11.
II Rabbi lochan : "Mag.," 51. f "Origen," 11.
** Cf. "August de Consans. Evang.," i., 9; Fabric. : "Cod. Ap. N. T.," i.,
p. 305, ff.
\\ " Recog.," i. 58; cf., p. 40.
JESUS IN THE GARB OF A MAGICIAN. 149
had been initiated, was likewise accused of witchcraft, and of carrying
about him the figure of a skeleton — a potent agent, as it is asserted, in
the operations of the black art. But one of the best and most unques-
tionable proofs of our assertion may be found in the so-called Museo
Gregoriano. On the sarcophagus, which is panelled with bas-reliefs
representing the miracles of Christ, * may be seen the full figure
of Jesus, who, in the resurrection of Lazarus, appears beardless " and
equipped with a wand in the received guise of a necromancer ( .? ) whilst
the corpse of Lazarus is swathed in bandages exactly as an Egyptian
mummy."
Had posterity been enabled to have several such representations
executed during the first century when the figure, dress, and every-day
habits of the Reformer were still fresh in the memory of his contempora-
ries, perhaps the Christian world would be more Christ-like ; the dozens
of contradictory, groundless, and utterly meaningless speculations about
the "Son of Man " would have been impossible ; and humanity would now
have but one religion and one God. It is this absence of all proof, the
lack of the least positive clew about him whom Christianity has dei-
fied, that has caused the present state of perplexity. No pictures of
Christ were possible until after the days of Constantine, when the Jewish
element was nearly eliminated among the followers of the new religion.
The Jews, apostles, and disciples, whom the Zoroastrians and the Parsees
had inoculated with a holy horror of any form of images, would have
considered it a sacrilegious blasphemy to represent in any way or shape
their master. The only authorized image of Jesus, even in the days of
TertuUian, was an allegorical representation of the " Good Shepherd," f
which was no portrait, but the figure of a man with a jackal-head, Hke
Anubis. \ On this gem, as seen in the collection of Gnostic amulets, the
Good Shepherd bears upon his shoulders the lost lamb. He seems to
have a human head upon his neck; but, as King correctly observes, " it
only seems so to the uninitiated eye." On closer inspection, he becomes
the double-headed Anubis, having one head human, the other a jackal's,
whilst his girdle assumes the form of a serpent rearing aloft its crested
head. " This figure," adds the author of the Gnostics, etc., "had two
meanings — one obvious for the vulgar ; the other mystical, and recogniz-
able by the initiated alone. It was perhaps the signet of some chief
* King's "Gnostics," p. 145; the author places this sarcophagus among the
earliest productions of that art which inundated later tlie world with mosaics and en-
gravings, representing the events and personages of the " New Testament."
f " De Pudicitia." See " The Gnostics and their Rem.-iins," p. 144.
X Ibid., plate i., p. 200.
ISO ISIS UNVETLED.
teacher or apostle." * This affords a fresh proof that the Gnostics and
early orthodox ( ? ) Christians were not so wide apart in their secret doc-
trine. King deduces from a quotation from Epiphanius, that even as
late as 400 a.d. it was considered an atrocious sin to attempt to repre-
sent the bodily appearance of Christ. Epiphanius f brings it as an idola-
trous charge against the Carpocratians that " they kept painted portraits,
and even gold and silver images, and in other materials, which they
pretended to be portraits of Jesus, and made by Pilate after the likeness
of Christ. . . . These they keep in secret, along with Pythagoras, Plato,
and Aristotle, and setting them all up together, they worship and offer
sacrifices unto them after the Gentiles' fashion."
What would the pious Epiphanius say were he to resuscitate and
step into St. Peter's Cathedral at Rome ! Ambrosius seems also very
desperate at the idea — that some persons fully credited the statement
of Lampridius that Alexander Severus had in his private chapel an
image of Christ among other great philosophers. "That the Pagans
should have preserved the likeness of Christ," he exclaims, " but the
disciples have neglected to do so, is a notion the mind shudders to
entertain, much less to believe."
All this points undeniably to the fact, that except a handful of self-
styled Christians who subsequently won the day, all the civilized portion
of the Pagans who knew of Jesus honored him as a philosopher, an adept
whom they placed on the same level with Pythagoras and Apollonius.
Whence such a veneration on their part for a man, were he simply, as
represented by the Synoptics, a poor, unknown Jewish carpenter from
Nazareth ? As an incarnated God there is no single record of him on
this earth capable of withstanding the critical e.vamination of science ; as
one of the greatest reformers, an inveterate enemy of every theological
dogmatism, a persecutor of bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime
codes of ethics, Jesus is one of the grandest and most clearly-defined
figures on the panorama of human history. His age may, with every day,
be receding farther and farther back into the gloomy and hazy mists of
the past ; and his theology — based on human fancy and supported by
untenable dogmas may, nay, must with every day lose more of its un-
merited prestige ; alone the grand figure of the philosopher and moral
reformer instead of growing paler will become with every century more
pronounced and more clearly defined. It will reign supreme and uni-
versal only on that day when the whole of humanity recognizes but one
* This gem is in the collection of the author of " The Gnostics and their Remains."
See p. 201.
f " Hoeresies," xxvii.
THE LONG-HAIRED NAZARENES. ISI
father — the unknown one above — and one brother — the whole of man-
kind below.
In a pretended letter of Lentulus, a senator and a distingdished his-
torian, to the Roman senate, there is a description of the personal ap-
pearance of Jesus. The letter itself, written in horrid Latin, is pro-
nounced a bare-faced forgery ; but we find therein an expression which
suggests many thoughts. Albeit a forgery it is evident that whosoever
invented it has nevertheless tried to follow tradition as closely as possi-
ble. The hair of Jesus is represented in it as "wavy and curling . . .
flowing down upon his shoulders," and as "having a parting in the mid-
dle of the head after the fashion of the Nazarenes." This last sentence
shows : I. That there was such a tradition, based on the biblical de-
scription of John the Baptist, the Nazaria, and the custom of this sect.
2. Had Lentulus been the author of this letter, it is difficult to believe
that Paul should never have heard of it ; and had he known its contents,
he would never have pronounced it a shame for men to wear their hair
long,* thus shaming his Lord and Christ-God. 3. If Jesus did wear his
hair long and " parted in the middle of the forehead, after the fashion of
the Nazarenes (as well as John, the only one of his apostles who fol-
lowed it), then we have one good reason more to say that Jesus must
have belonged to the sect of the Nazarenes, and been called Nasaria
for this reason and not because he was an inhabitant of Nazareth ; for
they never wore their hair long. The Nazarite, who separated himself
unto the Lord, allowed " no razor to come upon his head." " He shall
be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow," says Num-
bers (vi. s)- Samson was a Nazarite, i.e., vowed to the service of God,
and in his hair was his strength. " No razor shall come upon his head ;
the child shall be a Nazarite nnto God from the womb" {Judges xiii. 5).
But the final and most reasonable conclusion to be inferred from this is
that Jesus, who was so opposed to all the orthodox Jewish practices, would
not have allowed his hair to grow had he not belonged to this sect, which
in the days of John the Baptist had already become a heresy in the eyes
of the Sanhedrim. The Talmud, speaking of the Nazaria, or the Naza-
renes (who had abandoned the world like Hindu yogis or hermits) calls
theur a sect of physicians, of wandering exorcists ; as also does Jervis.
"They went about the country, living on alms and performing cures." f
Epiphanius says that the Nazarenes come next in heresy to the Corin-
thians whether having existed " before them or after them, nevertheless
synchronous," and then adds that "all Christians at that time were
equally called Nazarenes ! " J
* I Cor. xi. 14. -j- See the " Israelite Indeed," vol. ii., p. 238 ; " Treatise Nazir,"
J " Epiph. ed. Petar," vol. i., p 117.
152 ISIS UNVEILED.
In the very first remark made by Jesus about John the Baptist, we
find him stating that he is " Elias, which was for to come." This asser-
tion, if it is not a later interpolation for the sake of having a prophecy ful-
filled, means again that Jesus was a kabalist ; unless indeed we have to
adopt the doctrine of the French spiritists and suspect him of believing
in reincarnation. Except the kabalistic sects of the Essenes, the Nazar-
enes, the disciples of Simeon Ben lochai, and Hillel, neither the ortho-
dox Jews, nor the Galileans, believed or knew anything about the doc-
trine oi permutation. And the Sadducees rejected even that of the res-
urrection.
"But the author of this restitutionis was Mosah, our master, upon
whom be peace ! Who was the revolutio (transmigration) of Seth and
Hebel, that he might cover the nudity of his Father Adam — Primus" says
the Kabala* Thus, Jesus hinting that John was the revolutio, or trans-
migration of Elias, seems to prove beyond any doubt the school to
which he belonged.
Until the present day uninitiated Kabalists and Masons believe per-
mutation to be synonymous with transmigration and metempsychosis.
But they are as much mistaken in regard to the doctrine of the true
Kabalists as to that of the Buddhists. True, the Sohar says in one
place, "All souls are subject to transmigration . . . men do not know the
ways of the Holy One, blessed be He ; they do not know that they are
brought before the tribunal, both before they enter this world and after
they quit it," and the Pharisees also held this doctrine, as Josephus
shows (Ajitiguities, xviii. 13). Also the doctrine of Gilgul, held to the
strange theory of the " Whirling of the Soul," which taught that the
bodies of Jews buried far away from the Holy Land, still preserve a par-
ticle of soul which can neither rest nor quit them, until it reaches the
soil of the "Promised Land." And this "whirling" process was
thought to be accomplished by the soul being conveyed back through an
actual evolution of species ; transmigrating from the minutest insect up
to the largest animal. But this was an exoteric doctrine. We refer the
reader to the Kahbala Denudata of Henry Khunrath ; his language, how-
ever obscure, may yet throw some light upon the subject.
But this doctrine of permutation, or revolutio, must not be understood
as a belief in reincarnation. That Moses was considered the transmigra-
tion of Abel and Seth, does not imply that the kabalists — those who were
initiated at least — beUeved that the identical spirit of either of Adam's
sons reappeared under the corporeal form of Moses. It only shows what
was the mode of expression they used when hinting at one of the pro-
foundest mysteries of the Oriental Gnosis, one of the most majestic arti-
* "Kabbala Denudata," ii., 155 ; " Vallis Regia," Paris edition.
WHEN A "god" becomes INCARNATE. 153
cles of faith of the Secret Wisdom. It was purposely veiled so as to half
conceal and half reveal the truth. It implied that Moses, like certain
other god-like men, was beHeved to have reached the highest of all
states on earth : — the rarest of all psychological phenomena, the perfect
union of the immortal spirit with the terrestrial duad had occurred. The
trinity was complete. A god was incarnate. But how rare such incar-
nations !
That expression, " Ye are gods," which, to our biblical students, is a
mere abstraction, has for the kabalists a vital significance. Each immor-
tal spirit that sheds its radiance upon a human being is a god — the Micro-
cosmos of the Macrocosm'os, part and parcel of the Unknown God, the
First Cause of which it is a direct emanation. It is possessed of all the
attributes of its pai-ent source. Among these attributes are omniscience
and omnipotence. Endowed with these, but yet unable to fully manifest
them while in the body, during which time they are obscured, veiled,
limited by the capabilities of physical nature, the thus divinely-inhabi-
ted man may tower far above his kind, evince a god-like wisdom, and
display deific powers ; for while the rest of mortals around him are but
■overshadowed by their divine self, with every chance given to them to
become immortal hereafter, but no other security than their personal
efforts to win the kingdom of heaven, the so chosen man has already be-
come an immortal while yet on earth. His prize is secured. Henceforth
he will live forever in eternal life. Not only he may have " dominion " *
over all the works of creation by employing the "excellence" of the
NAME (the ineffable one) but be higher in this life, not, as Paul is made
to say, "a little lower than the angels." f
The ancients never entertained the sacrilegious thought that such
perfected entities were incarnations of the One Supreme and for ever
invisible God. No such profanation of the awful Majesty entered into
their conceptions. Moses and his antitypes and types were to them but
complete men, gods on earth, for their gods (divine spirits) had entered
unto their hallowed tabernacles, the purified physical bodies. The dis-
embodied spirits of the heroes and sages were termed gods by the
ancients. Hence, the accusation of polytheism and idolatry on the part
of those who were the first to anthropomorphize the holiest and purest
abstractions of their forefathers.
* Psalms viii.
\ This contradiction, which is attributed to Paul in Hebrews, by making him say
of Jesus in chapter i., 4 : " Being made so much better than the angels," and then im-
mediately stating in chapter ii. g, " But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower
than the angels," shows how unscrupulously the writings of the apostles, if they ever
wrote any, were tampered with.
1 54 ISIS UNVEILED.
The real and hidden sense of this doctrine was known to all the ini-
tiates. The Tanaim imparted it to their elect ones, the Isarini, in the
solemn solitudes of crypts and deserted places. It was one of the most
esoteric and jealously guarded, for human nature was the same then as
it is now, and the sacerdotal caste as confident as now in the supremacy
of its knowledge, and ambitious of ascendency over the weaker masses ;
with the difference perhaps that its hierophants could prove the legiti-
macy of their claims and the plausibility of their doctrines, whereas now,
believers must be content with blind faith.
While the kabalists called this mysterious and rare occurrence of the
union of spirit with the mortal charge entrusted to its care, the "descent
of the Angel Gabriel " (the latter being a kind of generic name for it), the
Messenger of Life, and the angel Metatron ; and while the Nazarenes
termed the same Abel-Zivo,* the Delegatus sent by the Lord of Celsitude,
it was universally known as the " Anointed Spirit."
Thus it is the acceptation of this doctrine which caused the Gnostics
to maintain that Jesus was a man overshadowed by the Christos or Mes-
senger of Life, and that his despairing cry from the cross " Eloi, Eloi,
Lama Sabachthani," was wrung from him at the instant when he felt that
this inspiring Presence had finally abandoned him, for — as some affirmed
— his faith had also abandoned him when on the cross.
The early Nazarenes, who must be numbered among the Gnostic sects,
believing that Jesus was a prophet, held, nevertheless, in relation to him
the same doctrine of the divine "overshadowing," of certain "men of
God," sent for the salvation of nations, and to recall them to the path of
righteousness. " The Divine mind is eternal," says the Codex,\ "And it is
pure light, and poured out through splendid and immense space (pleronia).
It is Genetrix of the ^ons. But one of them went to matter (chaos)
stirring up confused (turbulentos) movements ; and by a certain portion
of heavenly light fashioned it, properly constituted for use and appear-
ance, but the beginning of every evil. The Demiurg (of matter) claimed
divine honor.J Therefore Christus (" the anointed"), the prince of the
yEons (powers), was sent (expeditus), who taking on the person of a most
devout Jew, lesu, was to conquer him ; but who having laid it (the body)
aside, departed on high." We will explain further on the full significance
of the name Christos and its mystic meaning.
And now, in order to make such passages as the above more intelli-
gible, we will endeavor to define, as briefly as possible, the dogmas in
* *' Codex Nazaraeus," i. 23.
f Ibid., preface, p. v., translated from Norberg.
X " According to the Nazai-enes and Gnostics, the Demiurg, the creator of the ma-
terial world, is not the highest God." (See Dunlap : " Sod, the Son of the Man.")
BASILIDES, THE BRIGHT SUN OF GNOSTICISM. 1 55
which, with very trifling differences, nearly all the Gnostic sects beheved.
It is in Ephesus that flourished in those days the greatest college, wherein
the abstruse Oriental speculations and the Platonic philosophy were taught
in conjunction. It was a focus of the universal " secret " doctrines ; the
weird laboratory whence, fashioned in elegant Grecian phraseology, sprang
the quintessence of Buddhistic, Zoroastrian, and Chaldean philosophy.
Artemis, the gigantic concrete symbol of theosophico-pantheistic abstrac-
tions, the great mother Multimamma, androgyne and patroness of the
" Ephesian writings," was conquered by Paul ; but although the zealous
converts of the apostles pretended to burn all their books on " curious
arts," ra irepiepya, enough of these remained for them to study when
their first zeal had cooled off It is from Ephesus that spread nearly
all the Gnosis which antagonized so fiercely with the Irenffian dogmas ;
and still it was Ephesus, with her numerous collateral branches of the
great college of the Essenes, which proved to be the hot-bed of all
the kabalistic speculations brought by the Tanaim from the captivity.
" In Ephesus," says Matter, " the notions of the Jewish-Egyptian school,
and the semi-Persian speculations of the kabalists had then recently come
to swell the vast conflux of Grecian and Asiatic doctrines, so there is no
wonder that teachers should have sprung up there who strove to com-
bine the religion newly preached by the apostle with the ideas there so
long estabhshed."
Had not the Christians burdened themselves with the Revelations
of a little nation, and accepted the Jehovah of Moses, the Gnostic ideas
would never have been termed heresies ; once relieved of their dogmatic
exaggerations the world would have had a religious system based on pure
Platonic philosophy, and surely something would then have been gained.
Now let us see what are the greatest heresies of the Gnostics. We
will select Basilides as the standard for our comparisons, for all the
founders of other Gnostic sects group round him, like a cluster of stars
borrowing light from their sun.
Basilides maintained that he had had all his doctrines from the Apos-
tle Matthew, and from Peter through Glaucus, the disciple of the lat-
ter.* According to Eusebius, f he published twenty-four volumes of
Interpretations upon the Gospels, X all of which were burned, a fact which
makes us suppose that they contained more truthful matter than the
school of Irenaaus was prepared to deny. He asserted that the unknown,
• Clemens : " Al. Strom." vii., 7, § io5.
fH. E., iv. 7.
t The gospels interpreted by Basilides were not our present gospels, which, as it is
proved by the greatest authorities, were not in his days in existence. See " Supernat-
ural Religion," vol. ii., chap. Basilides.
IS6 ISIS UNVEILED.
eternal, and uncreated Father having first brought forth Nous, or Mind,
the latter emanated from itself— the Logos. The Logos (the Word of
John) emanated in its turn Ph-ronesis, or the Intelligences (Divine-human
spirits). From Phronesis sprung Sophia, or feminine wisdom, and
Dynamis — strength. These were the personified attributes of the Mys-
terious godhead, the Gnostic quinternion, typifying the five spiritual, but
intelligible substances, personal virtues or beings external to the
unknown godhead. This is preeminently a kabalistic idea. It is still
more Buddhistic. The earliest system of the Buddhistic philosophy —
which preceded by far Gautama-Buddha — is based upon the uncreated
substance of the " Unknown," the A'di Buddha.* This eternal, infinite
Monad possesses, as proper to his own essence, five acts of wisdom.
From these it, by five separate acts of Dhyiin, emitted five Dhyani
Buddhas ; these, like A'di Buddha, are quiescent in their system (pas-
sive). Neither A'di, nor either of the five Dhyani Buddhas, were ever
incarnated, but seven of their emanations becan)e Avatars, i.e., were
incarnated on this earth.
* The five make mystically ten. They are androgynes. " Having divided his body in
two parts, the Supreme Wisdom became male and female " (" Manu," book i., sloka
32). There are many early Buddhistic ideas to be found in Brahmanism.
The prevalent idea that the last of the Buddhas, Gautama, is the ninth incarnation
of Vishnu, or the ninth Avatar, is disclaimed partially by the Brahmans, and wholly
rejected by the learned Buddhist theologians. The latter insist that the worship of
Buddha possesses a far higher claim to antiquity than any of the Brahmanical deities of
the Vedas, which they call secular literature. The Brahmans, they show, came from
other countries, and established their heresy on the already accepted popular deities.
They conquered the land by the sword, and succeeded in burying truth, by building a
theology of their own on the ruins of the more ancient one of Buddha, which had
prevailed for ages. They admit the divinity and spiritual existence of some of the
Vedantic gods ; but as in the case of the Christian angel-hierarchy they beUeve that
all these deities are greatly subordinate, even to the incarnated Buddhas. They do not
even acknowledge the creation of the physical universe. Spiritually and invisibly \\. has
existed from all eternity, and thus it was made merely visible to the human senses.
When it first appeared it was called forth from the realm of the invisible into the visi-
ble by the impulse of A'di Buddha — the "Essence." They reckon twenty-two such visible
appearances of the universe governed by Buddhas, and as many destructions of it, by
fire and water in regular successions. After the last destruction by the flood, at the end
of the precedent cycle— (the exact calculation, embracing several millions of years, is a
secret cycle) the world, during the present age of the Kali Yug — Maha Bhadda Calpa—
has been ruled successively by four Buddhas, the last of whom was Gautama, the
" Holy One." The fifth, Maitree-Buddha, is yet to come. This latter is the expected
kabalistic King Messiah, the Messenger of Light, and Sosiosh, the Persian Saviour,
who will come on a white horse. It is also the Christian Second Advent. See
" Apocalypse " of St, John.
GNOSTICISM HIGHLY REVERENTIAL TOWARD THE DEITY. 15/
Describing the Basilidean system, Iren^us, quoting the Gnostics,
declares as follows :
" When the uncreated, unnamed Father saw the corruption of man-
kind, he sent his first-born Nous, into the world, in the form of Christ,
for the redemption of all who believe in him, out of the power of those
who fabricated the world (the Demiurgus, and his six sons, the planet-
ary genii). He appeared amongst men as the man, Jesus, and wrought
miracles. This Christ did not die in person, but Simon the Cyrenian
•suffered in his stead, to whom he lent his bodily form ; for the Divine
Power, the Nous of the Eternal Father, is not corporeal, and cannot die.
Whoso, therefore, maintains that Christ has died, is still the bondsman
of ignorance ; whoso denies the same, he is free, and hath understood
the purpose of the Father." *
So far, and taken in its abstract sense, we do not see anything blas-
phemous in this system. It may be a heresy against the theology of
Irenseus and Tertullian, f but there is certainly nothing sacrilegious
against the religious idea itself, and it will seem to every impartial thinker
far more consistent with divine reverence than the anthropomorphism
of actual Christianity. The Gnostics were called by the orthodox
Christians, Docetce, or Illusionists, for believing that Christ did not, nor
could, suffer death actually — in physical body. The later Brahmanical
books contain, likewise, much that is repugnant to the reverential feeling
and idea of the Divinity ; and as well as the Gnostics, the Brahmans
explain such legends as may shock the divine dignity of the Spiritual
beings called gods by attributing them to Maya or illusion.
A people brought up and nurtured for countless ages among all the
psychological phenomena of which the civilize'd (!) nations read, but
reject as incredible and worthless, cannot well expect to have its reli-
gious system even understood — let alone appreciated. The profoundest
and most transcendental speculations of the ancient metaphysicians of
India and other countries, are all based on that great Buddhistic and
Brahmanical principle underlying the whole of their religious meta-
physics— illusion of the senses. Everything that is finite is illusion, all
that which is eternal and infinite is reality. Form, color, that which
we hear and feel, or see with our mortal eyes, exists only so far as it can
be conveyed to each of us through our senses. The universe for a man
born blind does not exist in either form or color, but it exists in its priva-
tion (in the Aristotelean sense), and is a reality for the spiritual senses
* " Irenaeus," i. 23.
■f Tertullian reversed the table himself by rejecting, later in life, the doctrines for
which he fought with such an acerbity and by becoming a Montanist.
IS8 ISIS UNVEILED.
of the blind man. We all live under the powerful doniinion of phan-
tasy. Alone the highest and invisible originals emanated from the
thought of the Unknown are real and permanent beings, forms, and
ideas ; on earth, we see but their reflections ; more or less correct, and
ever dependent on the physical and mental organization of the person
who beholds them.
Ages untold before our era, the Hindu Mystic Kapila, who is consid-
ered by many scientists as a skeptic, because they judge him with their
habitual superficiality, magnificently expressed this idea in the following '
terms :
" Man (physical man) counts for so little, that hardly anything can
demonstrate to him his proper existence and that of nature. Perhaps,
that which we regard as the universe, and the divers beings which seem
to compose it, have nothing real, and are but the product of continued
illusion — maya — of our senses."
And the modern Schopenhauer, repeating this philosophical idea,
10,000 years old now, says :" Nature is non-existent, /ifrjf. . . . Nature
is the infinite illusion of our senses." Kant, Schelling, and other meta-
physicians have said the same, and their school maintains the idea. The
objects of sense being ever delusive and fluctuating, cannot be a reaUty.
Spirit alone is unchangeable, hence — alone is no illusion. This is pure
Buddhist doctrine. The religion of the Gnosis (knowledge), the
most evident offshoot of Buddhism, was utterly based on this metaphysi-
cal tenet. Christos suffered spiritually for us, and far more acutely
than did the illusionary Jesus while his body was being tortured on the
Cross.
In the ideas of the Christians, Christ is but another name for Jesus.
The philosophy of the Gnostics, the initiates, and hierophants understood
it otherwise. The word Christos, Xpiaros, like all Greek words, must be
sought in its philological origin — the Sanscrit. In this latter language
Kris means sacred,* and the Hindu deity was named Chris-na (the
pure or the sacred) from that. On the other hand, the Greek Christos
bears several meanings, as anointed (pure oil, chrism) and others. In
all languages, though the synonym of the word means pure or sacred
essence, it is the first emanation of the invisible Godhead, manifesting
itself tangibly in spirit. The Greek Logos, the Hebrew Messiah, the
* In his debate with JacoUiot upon the right spelling of the Hindu Chiistna, Mr.
Textor de Ravisi, an ultramontane Catholic, tries to prove that the name of Christna
ought to be written Krishna, for, as the latter means black, and the statues of this
deity are generally black, the word is derived from the color. We refer the reader to
JacoUiot's answer in his recent work, " Christna et le Christ," for the conclusive evi-
dence that the na]ne is not derived from the color.
MARCION, THE NOBLE HERESIARCH. 1 59
Latin Verbum, and the Hindu Viradj (the son) are identically the same ;
they represent an idea of collective entities — of flames detached from the
one eternal centre of light.
" The man who accomphshes pious but interested acts (with the sole
object of his salvation) may reach the ranks of the devas (saints) ; * but he
who accomplishes, disinterestedly, the same pious acts, finds himself ridden
forever of the five elements" (of matter). "Perceiving the Supreme
Soul in all beings and all beings in the Supreme Soul, in offering his own
soul in sacrifice, he identifies himself with the Being who shines in his
own splendor " [Ma/iii, book xii., slokas 90, 91).
Thus, Christos, as a unity, is but an abstraction : a general idea
representing the collective aggregation of the numberless spirit-entities,
which are the direct emanations of the infinite, invisible, incomprehensi-
ble First Cause — the individual spirits of men, erroneously called the souls.
They are the divine sons of God, of which some only overshadow mortal
men — but this the majority — some remain forever planetary spirits,
and some — the smaller and rare minority — unite themselves during life
with some men. Such God-like beings as Gautama-Buddha, Jesus,
Tissoo, Christna, and a few others had united themselves with their
spirits permanently — hence, they became gods on earth. Others, such as
Moses, Pythagoras, ApoUonius, Plotinus, Confucius, Plato, lamblichus,
and some Christian saints, having at intervals been so united, have taken
rank in history as denii-gods and leaders of mankind. When unburthenedof
their terrestrial tabernacles, their freed souls, henceforth united forever with
their spirits, rejoin the whole shining host, which is bound together in one
spiritual solidarity of thought and deed, and called " the anointed." Hence,
the meaning of the Gnostics, who, by saying that " Christos " suffered
spiritually for humanity, implied that his Divine Spirit suffered mostly.
Such, and far more elevating were the ideas of Marcion, the great
"Heresiarch" of the second century, as he is termed by his opponents.
He came to Rome toward the latter part of the half-century, from
A.D. 139-142, according to Tertullian, Irfenaeus, Clemens, and most of
his modern commentators, such as Bunsen, Tischendorf, Westcott, and
many others. Credner and Schleierniacher f agree as to his high and
irreproachable personal character, his pure religious aspirations and
elevated views. His influence must have been powerfu', as we find
* There is no equivalent for the word " miracle," in the Christian sense, among the
Brahmans or Buddhists. The only correct translation would be meipo, a wonder, some-
thing remarkable ; but not a violation of natural law. The "' saints " only produce
meipo.
f "Beitrage," vol. i.. p. 40; Schleiermacher : " Sammtl. Werke," viii. ; " Einl.
N. T.," p. 64! '
l60 ISIS UNVEILED.
Epiphanius writing more than two centuries later that in his time the
followers of Marcion were to be found throughout the whole world. *
The danger must have been pressing and great indeed, if we are to
judge it to have been proportioned with the opprobrious epithets and vitu-
peration heaped upon Marcion by the " Great African," that Patristic Cer-
berus, whom we find ever barking at the door of the Irenaean dogmas.f
We have but to open his celebrated refutation of Marcion's Antitheses, to
acquaint ourselves with the fine-fleur of monkish abuse of the Christian
school ; an abuse so faithfully carried through the middle ages, to be
renewed again in our present day — at the Vatican. " Now, then, ye
hounds, yelping at the God of Truth, whom the apostles cast out, to all
your questions. These are the bones of contention which ye gnaw,"
etc. \ " The poverty of the Great African's arguments keeps pace with
his abuse," remarks the author of Supernatural Religion. § " Their
(the Father's) religious controversy bristles with misstatements, and is
turbid with pious abuse. TertulHan was a master of his style, and the
vehement vituperation with which he opens and often interlards his work
against ' the impious and sacrilegious Marcion,' offers anything but a
guarantee of fair and legitimate criticism."
How firm these two Fathers — Tertullian and Epiphanius — were on
their theological ground, maybe inferred from the curious fact that they in-
temperately both vehemently reproach "the beast" (Marcion) "with era-
sing passages from the Gospel of Luke which never were in Luke at all." ||
"The lightness and inaccuracy," adds the critic, "with which Tertullian
proceeds, are all the better illustrated by the fact that not only does he
accuse Marcion falsely, but he actually defines the motives for which he ex-
punged a passage which never existed ; in the same chapter he also simi-
larly accuses Marcion of erasing (from Luke) the saying that Christ had not
come to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them, and he
actually repeats the charge on two other occasions. ^ Epiphanius also
commits the mistake of reproaching Marcion with omitting from Luke
what is only found in Matthew." **
Having so far shown the amount of reliance to be placed in the
Patristic literature, and it being unanimously conceded by the great ma-
jority of biblical critics that what the Fathers fought for was not truth.,
but their own interpretations and unwarranted assertions, ff we will now
* " Epiph. Htera.," xlii., p. i. f Tertullian : "Adv. Marc," ii. 5 ; cf. 9.
\ Ibid., ii. 5. g vol. ii., p. 105. \ Ibid., vol. ii., p. 100. '
If " Adv. Marc," iv., 9, 36.
** "Supernatural Religion," p. lor ; Matthew v. 17.
ff This author, vol. ii. , p. 103, remarks with great justice of the " Heresiarch "
Marcion, " whose high personal character exerted so powerful an influence upon his own
THE TWO FACTIONS IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. l6l
proceed to state what were the views of Marcion, whom TertuUian desired
to annihilate as the most dangerous heretic of his day. If we are to be-
lieve Hilgenfeld, one of the greatest German biblical critics, then " From
the critical standing-point one must . . . consider the statements of the
Fathers of the Church only as expressions of their subjective view, which
itself requires proof." *
We can do no better nor make a more correct statement of facts
concerning Marcion than by quoting what our space permits from Super-
natural Religion, the author of which bases his assertions on the evidence
of the greatest critics, as well as on his own researches. He shows in
the days of IVEarcion "two broad parties in the primitive Church" —
one considering Christianity " a mere continuation of the law, and dwarf-
ing it into an Israelitish institution, a narrow sect of Judaism;" the other
representing the glad tidings " as the introduction of a new system, appli-
cable to all, and supplanting the Mosaic dispensation of the law by a
universal dispensation of grace." These two parties, he adds, "were
popularly represented in the early Church, by the two apostles Peter and
Paul, and their antagonism is faintly revealed in the Epistle to the
Galatians." \
time," that " it was the misfortune of Marcion to live in an age when Christianity had
passed out of the pure morality of its infancy ; when, untroubled' by complicated ques-
tions of dogma, simple faith and pious enthusiasm had been the one great bond of
Christian brotherhood, into a phase of ecclesiastical development in which religion was
fast degenerating into theology, and complicated doctrines were rapidly assuming the
rampant attitude which led to so much bitterness, persecution, and schism. In later
times Marcion might have been honored as a reformer, in his own he was denounced as
a heretic. Austere and ascetic in his opinions, he aimed at superhuman purity, and,
although his clerical adversaries might scoff at his impracticable doctrines regarding
marriage and the subjugation of the flesh, they have had their parallels amongst those
whom the Church has since most delighted to honor, and, at least, the whole tendency
of his system was markedly towards the side of virtue." These statements are based
upon Credner's " Beitrage," i., p. 40; cf. Neander : " AUg. K. G.,'' ii., p. 792, f. ;
Schleiermacher, Milman, etc., etc.
* Justin's. " Die Evv.," p. 446, sup. B.
\ But, on the other hand, this antagonism is very strongly marked in the " Clemen-
tine Homilies," in which Peter unequivocally denies that Paul, whom he calls Simon the
Magician has ever had a vision of Christ, and calls him " an enemy." Canon Westcott
says: "There can be no doubt that St. Paul is referred to as ' the enemy' " (" On
the Canon," p. 252, riote 2 ; "Supernatural Religion," vol. ii., p. 35). But this antag-
onism, which rages unto the present day, we find even in St. Paul's " Epistles." What
can be more energetic than such like sentences: " Such are false apostles, deceitful
workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. ... I suppose I was
not a whit behind the very chiefest apostle" (2 Corinthians, xi.). " Paul, an apostle
not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised hirn
from the dead . . . but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel
II
l62 ISIS UNVEILED.
Marcion, who recognized no other Gospels than a few Epistles of
Paul, who rejected totally the anthropomorphism of the Old Testa-
ment, and drew a distinct line of demarcation between the old Judaism
and Christianity, viewed Jesus neither as a King, Messiah of the Jews,
nor the son of David, who was in any way connected with the law or
prophets, " but a divine being sent to reveal to man a spiritual religion,
wholly new, and a God of goodness and grace hitherto unknown." The
of Christ . . . false irethren. . . . When Peter came to Antioch I withstood him to
his face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, kg did
eat with the Gentiles, but when they were come he withdrew, fearing them which were of
the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled , . . insomuch that Barnabas also was
carried away with their dissimulation,'''' etc., etc. (Galat. i. and ii.). On the other hand, we
find Peter in the " Homilies," indulging in various complaints which, although alleged
to be addressed to Simon Magus, are evidently all du"ect answers to the above-quoted
sentences from the Pauline Epistles, and cannot have anything to do with Simon. So,
for instance, Peter said: "For some among the Gentiles have rejected my lawful
preaching, and accepted certain lawless and foolish teaching of the hostile men (ene-
my) " — Epist. of Peter to James, § 2. He says further : " Simon (Paul) . . . who came
befoi'e me to the Gentiles . . . and I have followed him as light upon darkness, as
knowledge upon ignorance, as health upon disease " (" Homil.," ii. 17). Still further,
he calls him Death and a deceiver (Ibid., ii. 18). He warns the Gentiles that " our Lord
and Prophet ( .? ) {Jesus') announced that he would send from among his followers, apos-
tles to deceive. " Therefore, above all, remember to avoid every apostle, or teacher,
or prophet, who fir?t does not accurately compare his teaching with that of James,
called the brother of our Lord " (see the difference between Paul and James on faith,
Epist. to Hebrews, xi., xii., and Epist. of James, ii.). " Lest the Evil One should send
a false preacher ... as he has sent to us Simon (?) preaching a counterfeit of truth in
the name of our Lord, and disseminating error " (" Hom." xi., 35 ; see above quotation
from Gal. i, 5). He then denies Paul's assertion, in the following words: " If, there-
fore, our Jesus indeed appeared in a vision to you, it was only as an irritated adversary.
. . . But how can any one through visions become wise in teaching ? And if you say,
'it is possible,' then I ask, wherefore did the Teacher remain for a whole year and dis-
course to those who were attentive ? And how can we believe your story that he
appeared to you ? And in what manner did he appear to you, when you hold opinions
contrary to his teaching ? . . . For you now set yourself up against me, who am a
firm rock, the foundation of the Church. If you were not an opponent, you would
not calumniate me, you would not revile my teaching . . . (circumcision?) in order that,
in declaring what I have myself heard from the Lord, I may not be believed, as though/
were condemned. . . . But if you say that I am condemned, you blame God who
revealed Christ tome." "This last phrase," observes t'ne author of " Supernatiu-al
Religion," " 'if you say that I am condemned,' is an evident allusion to Galat. ii, 11,
' I withstood him to the face, because he was condemned ' " (" Supernatural Religion,"
p. 37). " There cannot be a doubt," adds the just-quoted author, "that the Apostle
Paul is attacked in this religious romance as the great enemy of the true faith, under
the hated name of Simon the Magician, whom Peter follows everywhere for the pur-
pose of unmaskmg and confuting him " (p. 34). And if so, then we must believe
that it was St. Paul who broke both his legs in Rome when flying in the air.
JESUS IGNORES JEHOVAH. 1 63
" Lord God " of the Jews in his eyes, the Creator (Demiurgos), was totally-
different and distinct from the Deity who sent Jesus to reveal the divine
truth and preach the glad tidings, to bring reconciliation and salvation to
all. The mission of Jesus — according to Marcion — was to abrogate the
Jewish " Lord," who " was opposed to the God and Father of Jesus
Christ as matter is to spirit, impurity to purity T
Was Marcion so far wrong ? Was it blasphemy, or was it intuition,
divine inspiration in him to express that which every honest heart yearn-
ing for truth, more or less feels and acknowledges ? If in his sincere
desire to establish a purely spiritual religion, a universal faith based on
unadulterated truth, he found it necessary to make of Christianity an
entirely new and separate system from that of Judaism, did not Marcion
have the very words of Christ for his authority ? " No man putteth a piece
of new cloth into an old garment . . . for the rent is made worse. . . .
Neither do men put new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break,
and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish ; but they put nnc ivine
into new bottles, and both are preserved." In what particular does the
jealous, wrathful, revengeful God of Israel resemble the unknown deity,
the God of mercy preached by Jesus ; — his Father who is in Heaven,
and the Father of all humanity ? This Father alone is the God of spirit
and purity, and, to compare Him with the subordinate and capricious
Sinaitic Deity is an error. Did Jesus ever pronounce the name of
Jehovah ? Did he ever place his Father in contrast with this severe and
cruel Judge ; his God of mercy, love, and justice, with the Jewish genius
of retaliation ? Never ! From that memorable day when he preached
his Sermon on the Mount, an immeasurable void opened between his
God and that other deity who fulminated his commands from that other
mount — Sinai. The language of Jesus is unequivocal ; it implies not only
rebellion but defiance of the Mosaic "Lord God." "Ye have heard,"
he tells us, " that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth : but / say unto you. That ye resist not evil : but whosoever shall
smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Ye have
heard that it hath been said [by the same "Lord God" on Sinai] :
Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto
you ; Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them
that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and per-
secute you" {Matthew, w.).
And now, open Mann and read :
" Resignation, the action of rendering good for evil, temperance, pro-
bity, purity, repression of the senses, the knowledge of the Sastras (the
holy books), that of the supreme soul, truthfulness and abstinence from
anger, such are the ten virtues in which consists duty. . . . Those who
l64 ISIS UNVEILED.
study these ten precepts of duty, and after having studied them conform
their Hves thereto, will reach to the supreme condition " {Manu, book
vi., sloka 92).
If Manu did not trace these words many thousands of years before
the era of Christianity, at least no voice in the whole world will dare deny
them a less antiquity than several centuries B.C. The same in the case
of the precepts of Buddhism.
If we turn to the Prdtimoksha Sutra and other religious tracts of the
Buddhists, we read the ten following commandments :
1. Thou shalt not kill any living creature.
2. Thou shalt not steal.
3. Thou shalt not break thy vow of chastity.
4. Thou shalt not lie.
5. Thou shalt not betray the secrets of others.
6. Thou shalt not wish for the death of thy enemies.
7. Thou shalt not desire the wealth of others.
8. Thou shalt not pronounce injurious and foul words.
9. Thou shalt not indulge in luxury (sleep on soft beds or be lazy).
ID. Thou shalt not accept gold or silver. *
" Good master, what shall I do that I may have eternal life ? " asks a
man of Jesus. " Keep the commandments." "Which?" "Thou shalt
do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal,
Thou shalt not bear false witness," f is the answer.
" What shall I do to obtain possession of Bhodi ? (knowledge of
eternal truth) " asks a disciple of his Buddhist master. " What way is
there to become an Upasaka ?" " Keep the commandments." " What
are they ? " " Thou shalt abstain all thy life from murder, theft, adultery,
and lying," answers the master. J
Identical injunctions are they not ? Divine injunctions, the living
up to which would purify and exalt humanity. But are they more divine
when uttered through one mouth than another? If it is god-like to return
good for evil, does the enunciation of the precept by a Nazarene give it
any greater force than its enunciation by an Indian, or Thibetan philos-
opher ? We see that the Golden Rule was not original with Jesus ; that
its birth-place was India. Do what we may, we cannot deny Sakya-
Muni Buddha a less remote antiquity than several centuries before the
birth of Jesus. In seeking a model for his system of ethics why should
Jesus have gone to the foot of the Himalayas rather than to the foot of
* " Pratimoksha Sdtra," Pali-Burmese copy; see also "Lotus de la Bonne Loi,"
translated by Burnouf, p. 444.
f Matthew xix. 16-18. % " Pittakatayan," book iii., Pali Version.
JEHOVAH IDENTIFIED WITH BACCHUS. 165
Sinai, but that the doctrines of Manu and Gautama harmonized exactly
with his own philosophy, while those of Jehovah were to him abhorrent and
terrifying ? The Hindus taught to return good for evil, but' the Jehovis-
tic command was : "An eye for an eye " and " a tooth for a tooth."
Would Christians still maintain the identity of the " Father" of Jesus
and Jehovah, if evidence sufficiently clear could be adduced that the
" Lord God " was no other than the Pagan Bacchus, Dionysos ? Well,
this identity of the Jehovah at Mount Sinai with the god Bacchus is hardly
disputable. The name nini is Yava or lao, according to Theodoret,
which is the secret name of the Phoenician Mystery-god ; * and it was ac-
tually adopted from the Chaldeans with whom it also was the secret name
of the creator. Wherever Bacchus was worshipped there was a tradition
of Nysa and a cave where he was reared. Beth-San or Scythopolis in
Palestine had that designation ; so had a spot on Mount Parnassus.
But Diodorus declares that Nysa was between Phoenicia and Egypt ;
Euripides states that Dionysos came to Greece from India ; and Diodo-
rus adds his testimony : " Osiris was brought up in Nysa, in Arabia the
Happy ; he was the son of Zeus, and was named from his father (nomi-
native Zeus, genitive Dios) and the place Dio-Nysos " — the Zeus or Jove
of Nysa. This identity of name or title is very significant. In Greece
Dionysos was second only to Zeus, and Pindar says :
" So Father Zeus governs all things, and Bacchus he governs also."
But outside of Greece Bacchus was the all-powerful " Zagreus, the
highest of gods." Moses seems to have worshipped him personally and
together with the populace at Mount Sinai ; unless we admit that he
was an initiated priest, an adept, who knew how to lift the veil which
hangs behind all such exoteric worship, but kept the secret. '^ And Moses
built an altar, and called the name of it felwTali-N issi ! " or lao-Nisi.
What better evidence is required to show that the Sinaitic god was in-
differently Bacchus, Osiris, and Jehovah ? Mr. Sharpe appends also his
testimony that the place where Osiris was born " was Mount Sinai,
called by the Egyptians Mount Nissa," The Brazen Serpent was a nis,
en:, and the month of the Jewish Passover nisan.
If the Mosaic " Lord God " was the only living God, and Jesus His
only Son, how account for the rebellious language of the latter ? With-
out hesitation or qualification he sweeps away the Jewish lex talionis
and substitutes for it the law of charity and self-denial. If the Old Tes-
* See Judges xiii. 18, '' And the angel of the Lord said unto him : Why askest
thou after my name, seeing it is secret? "
1 66 ISIS UNVEILED.
tatnent is a divine revelation, how can the New Testament be ? Are we
required to believe and worship a Deity who contradicts himself every
few hundred years ? Was Moses inspired, or was Jesus not the son of
God ? This is a dilemma from which the theologians are bound to res-
cue us. It is from this very dilemma that the Gnostics endeavored to
snatch the budding Christianity.
Justice has been waiting nineteen centuries for intelligent commen-
tators to appreciate this difference between the orthodox Tertulhan and
the Gnostic Marcion. The brutal violence, unfairness, and bigotry of the
" great African" repulse all who accept his Christianity. " How can a
god," inquired Marcion, "break his own commandments? How could
he consistently prohibit idolatry and image-worship, and still cause Moses
to set up the brazen serpent ? How command : Thou shalt not steal,
and then order the Israehtes to spoil the Egyptians of their gold and
silver ? " Anticipating the results of modern criticism, Marcion denies
the applicability to Jesus of the so-called Messianic prophecies. Writes
the author of Supernatural Religion : * " The Emmanuel of Isaiah is not
Christ ; the ' Virgin,' his mother, is simply a ' young woman,' an alma
of the temple ; and the sufferings of the servant of God {Isaiah lii.
13-liii. 3) are not predictions of the death of Jesus." f
* Vol. ii., p. 106.
f Emmanuel was doubtless the son of the prophet himself, as described in the sixth
chapter ; what was predicted, can only be interpreted on that hypothesis. The prophet
had also announced to Ahaz the extinction of his line. " If ye will not believe, surely
ye shall not be established." Next comes the prediction of the placing of a new prince
on the throne — Hezekiah of Bethlehem, said to have been Isaiah's son-in-law, under
whom the captives should return from the uttermost parts of the earth. Assyria should
be humbled, and peace overspread the Israelitish country, compare Isaiah vii. 14-16 ;
viii. 3, 4 ; ix. 6, 7 ; x. 12, 20, 21 ; xi. ; Micah v., 2-7. The popular party, the
party of the prophets, always opposed to the Zadokite priesthood, had resolved to set
aside Ahaz and his time-serving policy, which had let in Assyria upon Palestine, and to
set up Hezekiah, a man of their own, who should rebel against Assyria and overthrow
the Assur-worship and Baalim (2 Kings xv. 11). Though only the prophets hint
this, it being cut out from the historical books, it is noticeable that Ahaz offered his
own child to Moloch, also that he died at the age of thirty-six, and Hezekiah took the
throne at twenty-five, in full adult age.
CHAPTER IV.
"Nothing better than those Mysteries, by which, from a rough and fierce life, we are polished to
gendeness (humanity, kindness), and softened." — Cicero : de Legibus, ii., 14.
" Descend, O Soma, with that stream with which thou Hghtest up the Sun. . . . Soma, a Life
Ocean spread through All, thou fiUest creadve the Sun with beams." — Ris-Veda, ii., 143.
** . . . the beautiful Virgin ascends, with long hair, and she holds two ears in her hand, and
sits on a seat and feeds a Boy as yet lilde, and suckles him and gives him food." — Avenar.
IT is alleged that the Pentateuch was written by Moses, and yet it
contains the account of his own death (Deuteronomy xxxiv. 6) ;
and in Genesis (xiv. 14), the name Dan is given to a city, \i\i\&i Judges
(xviii. 29), tells us was only called by that name at that late day, it hav-
ing previously been known as Laish. Well might Josiah have rent his
clothes when he had heard the words of the Book of the Law ; for there
was no more of Moses in it than there is of Jesus in the Gospel according
to John.
We have one fair alternative to offer our theologians, leaving them to
choose for themselves, and promising to abide by their decision. Only
they will have to admit, either that Moses was an impostor, or that his
books are forgeries, written at different times and by different persons ;
or, again, that they are full of fraudulent interpolations. In either case
the work loses all claims to be considered divine Revelation. Here is
the problem, which we quote from the Bible — the word of the God of
Truth :
"And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the
name of God Almighty, but by my name of Jehovah was I not known to
them" {Exodus vi. 3), spake God unto Moses.
A very startling bit of information that, when, before arriving at the
book of Exodus, we are told in Genesis (xxii. 14) that "Abraham
called the name of that place" — where tlie patriarch had been preparing
to cut the throat of his only-begotten son — " jEHOVAH-jireh ! " (Jeho-
vah sees.) Which is the inspired text ? — both cannot be — which the
forgery ?
l68 ISIS UNVEILED.
Now, if both Abraham and Moses had not belonged to the same holy-
group, we might, perhaps, help theologians by suggesting to them a con-
venient means of escape out of this dilemma. They ought to call the
reverend Jesuit Fathers— especially those who have been missionaries in
India— to their rescue. The latter would not be for a moment discon-
certed. They would coolly tell us that beyond doubt Abraham had heard
the name of Jehovah and borrowed it from Moses. Do they not main-
tain that it was they who invented the Sanscrit, edited Manu, and com-
posed the greater portion of the Vedas ?
Marcion maintained, with the other Gnostics, the fallaciousness of the
idea of an incarnate God, and therefore denied the corporeal reality of
the living body of Christ. His entity was a mere illusion. ; it was not
made of human flesh and blood, neither was it born of a human mother,
for his divine nature could not be polluted with any contact with sinful
flesh. * He accepted Paul as the only apostle preaching the pure gos-
pel of truth, and accused the other disciples of " depraving the pure
form of the gospel doctrines delivered to them by Jesus, mixing up mat-
ters of the Law with the words of the Saviour." f
Finally we may add that modern biblical criticism, which unfortu-
nately became really active and serious only toward the end of the last
century, now generally admits that Marcion's text of the only gospel he
knew anything about — that of Luke, is far superior and by far more cor-
rect than that of our present Synoptics. We find in Supernatural
Religion the following (for every Christian) startling sentence : " We
are, therefore, indebted to Marcion for the correct version even of ' the
Lords Prayer: " %
If, leaving for the present the prominent founders of Christian sects,
we now turn to that of the Ophites, which assumed a definite form about
the time of Marcion and the Basilideans, we may find in it the reason
for the heresies of all others. Like all other Gnostics, they rejected the
Mosaic Bible entirely. Nevertheless, their philosophy, apart from some
deductions original with several of the most important founders of the
various branches of Gnosticism was not new. Passing through the Chal-
dean kabalistic tradition, it gathered its materials in the Hermetic books,
and pursuing its flight still farther back for its metaphysical speculations,
we find it floundering among the tenets of Manu, and the earUest Hindu
ante-sacerdotal genesis. Many of our eminent antiquarians trace the
Gnostic philosophies right back to Buddhism, which does not impair in
* Tertullian : " Adv. Marci," iii. 8 ff.
\ " Sup. Rel. ," vol. ii., p. 107 ; "Adv. Marci," iii. 2, § 2; cf. iii. 12, § 12.
I " Sup. Relig.," vol. ii., p. 126.
THE INDIAN, CHALDEAN, AND OPHITE TRINITIES. 169
the least either their or our arguments. We repeat again, Buddhism is
but the primitive source of Brahmanism. It is not against the primitive
Vedas that Gautama protests. It is against the sacerdotal and official
state religion of his country ; and the Brahman s, who in order to make
room for and give authority to the castes, at a later period crammed the
ancient manuscripts with interpolated slokas, intended to prove that the
castes were predetermined by the Creator by the very fact that each class
of men was issued from a more or less noble limb of Brahma. Gautama-
Buddha's philosophy was that taught from the beginning of time in the
impenetrable secresy of the inner sanctuaries of the pagodas. We need
not be surprised, therefore, to find again, in all the fundamental dogmas
of the Gnostics, the metaphysical tenets of both Brahmanism and
Buddhism. They held that the Old Testament was the revelation of an
inferior being, a subordinate divinity, and did not contain a single sen-
tence of their Sophia, the Divine Wisdom. As to the New Testament, it
had lost its purity when the compilers became guilty of interpolations.
The revelation of divine truth was sacrificed by them to promote selfish
ends and maintain quarrels. The accusation does not seem so very
improbable to one who is well aware of the constant strife between the
champions of circumcision and the " Law," and the apostles who had
given up Judaism.
The Gnostic Ophites taught the doctrine of Emanations, so hateful to
the defenders of the unity in the trinity, and vice versa. The Unknown
Deity with them had no name ; but his first female emanation was called
Bythos or Depth. * It answered to the Shekinah of the kabalists, the
"Veil" which conceals the "Wisdom" in the cranium of the highest
of the three heads. As the Pythagorean Monad, this tiameless Wisdom
was the Source of Light, and Ennoia or Mind, is Light itself. The
latter was also called the " Primitive Man," like the Adam Kadmon, or
ancient Adam of the Kabala. Indeed, if man was created after his
likeness and in the image of God, then this God was like his creature in
shape and figure — hence, he is the "Primitive man." The first Mann,
the one evolved from Swayambhuva, "he who exists unrevealed in his
own glory," is also, in one sense, the primitive man, with the Hindus.
Thus the " nameless and the unrevealed," Bythos, his female reflec-
tion, and Ennoia, the revealed Mind proceeding fi'om both, or their Son
are the counterparts of the Chaldean firs-t triad as well as those of the
Brahmanic Trimurti. ^Ve will compare : in all the three systems we see
* We give the systems according to an old diagram preserved among some Kopts
and the Druses of Mount Lebanon. Irenseus had perhaps some good reasons to dis-
figure their doctrines.
I JO
ISIS UNVEILED.
The Great First Cause as the One, the primordial germ, the
unrevealed and grand All, existing through himself. In the
Indian Pantheon.
Brahma-Zyaus.
The Chaldean. In the Ophite.
Ilu, Kabalistic En -Soph. The Nameless, or Secret
Name.
Whenever the Eternal awakes from its slumber and desires to mani-
fest itself, it divides itself into male and female. It then becomes in
every system
The Double-Sexed Deity, The universal Father and Mother.
In India. In Chaldea. In the Ophite System.
Brahma, Eikon or En-Soph. Nameless Spirit.
Nara (male), Nari (fe- Ann (male), Anata (fe- Abrasax (male), Bythos
male). male). (female).
From the union of the two emanates a third, or creative Principle —
the Son, or the manifested Logos, the product of the Divine Mind.
In India.
Viradj, the Son.
In Chaldea.
Bel, the Son.
Ophite System.
Ophis (another name for
Ennoia), the Son.
Moreover, each of these systems has a triple male trinity, each pro-
ceeding separately through itself from one female Deity. So, for
instance :
In India.
The Trinity — Brahma,
Vishnu, Siva, are blended
into One, who is Brahma
(neuter gender), creating
and being created through
the Virgin Nari (the
mother of perpetual fecun-
dity).
In Chaldea.
The trinity — Ann, Bel,
Hoa (or Sin, Samas, Bin),
blend into One who is
Anu (double-sexed)
through the Virgin Mylitta.
In the Ophite System.
The trmity consisted of
the Mystery named Sige,
Bythos, Ennoia. These be-
come One who is Abrasax^
from the Virgin Sophia
(or P^ieiitnd)^ who herselfis
an emanation of Bythos and
the Mystery -god and eman-
ates through them,Christos.
To place it still clearer, the Babylonian System recognizes first — the
One (Ad, or Ad-ad), who is never named, but only acknowledged in
thought as the Hindu Swayambhuva. From this he becomes manifest as
Anu or Ana — the one above all — Monas. Next comes the Demiurge
called Bel or Elu, who is the active power of the Godhead. The third is
the principle of Wisdom, Hea or Hoa, who also rules the sea and the
underworld. Each of these has his divine consort, giving us Anata, Belta,
VARIOUS "only-begotten" sons. 171
and Davkina. These, however, are only hke the Saktls, and not especially
remarked by theologists. But the female principle is denoted by Mylitta,
the Great Mother, called also Ishtar. So with the three male gods, we
have the Triad or Trimurti, and with Mylitta added, the Arba or Four
(Tetraktys of Pythagoras), which perfects and potentializes all. Hence,
the above-given modes of expression. The following Chaldean diagram
may serve as an illustration for all others :
T3 ( Anu, ) Mylitta — Arba-il,
H ( Hoa, ) Four-fold God,
become, with the Christians,
t^ ( God the Father, \ Mary; or mother of these three Gods
.5 \ God the Son, V since tliey are one,
fi; ( God the Holy Ghost, ) or, the Christian Heavenly Tetraktys.
Hence, Hebron, the city of the Kabeiri was called Kirjath-Arba, city
of the Four. The Kabeiri were Axieros — the noble Eros, Axiokersos,
the worthy horned one, Axiokersa, Demeter and Kadniiel, Hoa, etc.
The Pythagorean ten denoted the Arba-Il or Divine Four, emblema-
tized by the Hindu Lingham : Anu, i ; Bel, 2 ; Hoa, 3, which makes 6.
The triad and Mylitta as 4 make the ten.
Though he is termed the " Primitive Man," Ennoia, who is like the
Egyptian Pimander, the " Power of the Thought Divine," the first intel-
ligible manifestation of the Divine Spirit in material form, he is like the
" Only- Begotten " Son of the " Unknown P'ather," of all other nations.
He is the emblem of the first appearance of the divine Presence in his
own works of creation, tangible and visible, and therefore comprehensi-
ble. The mystery-God, or the ever-unrevealed Deity fecundates through
His will Bythos, the unfathomable and infinite depth that exists in
silence (Sig6) and darkness (for our intellect), and that represents the
abstract idea of all nature, the ever-producing Cosmos. As neither the
male nor female principle, blended into the idea of a double-sexed Deity
in ancient conceptions, could be comprehended by an ordinary human
intellect, the theology of every people had to create for its religion a
Logos, or manifested word, in some shape or other. With the Ophites
and other Gnostics who took their models direct from more ancient
originals, the unrevealed Bythos and her male counterpart produce
Ennoia, and the three in their turn produce Sophia,* thus completing the
Tetraktys, which will emanate Christos, the very essence of the Father
* Sophia is the highest prototype of woman — the first spiritual Eve. In the Bible
the system is reversed and the intervening emanation being omitted. Eve is degraded to
simple humanity.
172 ISIS UNVEILED.
Spirit. As the unrevealed One, or concealed Logos in its latent state,
he has existed from all eternity in the Arba-Il, the metaphysical abstrac-
tion ; therefore, he is one with all others as a unity, the latter (including
all) being indifferently termed Ennoia, Sig6 (silence), Bythos, etc. As
the revealed one, he is Androgyne, Christos, and Sophia (Divine Wis-
dom), who descend into the man Jesus. Both Father and Son are shown
by Irenasus to have loved the beauty [formam) of the primitive woman,*
who is Bythos — Depth — as well as Sophia, and as having produced con-
jointly Ophis and Sophia (double-sexed unity again), male and female
wisdom, one being considered as the unrevealed Holy Spirit, or elder
Sophia — the Pneuma — the intellectual "Mother of all things;" the other
the revealed one, or Ophis, typifying divine wisdom fallen into matter,
or God-man — Jesus, whom the Gnostic Ophites represented by the
serpent (Ophis).
Fecundated by the Divine Light of the Father and Son, the highest
spirit and Ennoia, Sophia produces in her turn two other emanations —
one perfect Christos, the second imperfect Sophia-Achamoth, \ from
nitisn hakhamoth (simple wisdom), who becomes the mediatrix between
the intellectual and material worlds.
Christos was the mediator and guide between God (the Higher), and
everything spiritual in man ; Achamoth — the younger Sophia — held the
same duty between the "Primitive man," Ennoia and matter. What
was mysteriously meant by the general term, Christos, we have just
explained.
Delivering a sermon on the " Month of Mary," we find the Rev. Dr.
Preston, of New York City, expressing the Christian idea of the female
jirinciple of the trinity better and more clearly than we could, and sub-
stantially in the spirit of an ancient "heathen" philosopher. He says
that the " plan of the redemption made it necessary that a mother should
be found, and Mary stands pre-eminently alone as the only instance when
a creature was necessary to the consummation of God's work." We will
beg the right to contradict the reverend gentleman. As shown above, thou-
sands of years before our era it was found necessary by all the "heathen"
theogonies to find a female principle, a " mother " for the triune male
principle. Hence, Christianity does not present the "only instance" of
such a consummation of God's work — albeit, as this work shows, there
was more philosophy and less materialism, or rather anthropomorphism,
in it. But hear the reverend Doctor express " heathen " thought in
* See " Irenasus," book i., chap. 31-33.
f In King's " Gnostics," we find tlie system a little incorrect. The author tells us
that he followed Bellermann's " Drei Programmen uber die Abraxas gemmeu."
THE "TRINITY LISTEN FOR MARY'S ANSWER." 173
Christian ideas. " He" (God), he says, "prepared her (Mary's) virginal
and celestial purity, for a mother defiled could not become the mother of
the Most High. The holy virgin, even in her childhood, was more pleas-
ing than all the Cherubim and Seraphim, and from infancy to the maturing
maidenhood and womanhood she grew more and more pure. By her very
sanctity she reigned over the heart of God. When the hour came, the
luhole court ef heaven was hushed, and the trinity listened for the answer
of Mary, for without her consent the world could not have been redeemed!'
Does it not seem as if we were reading Irenreus explaining the Gnostic
"■^Heresy, which taught that the Father and Son loved the beauty {for-
mam) of the celestial Virgin ?" or the Egyptian system, of Isis being both
wife, sister, and mother of Osiris — Horus ? With the Gnostic philosophy
there were but two, but the Christians have improved and perfected the
system by making it completely "heathen," for it is the Chaldean Anu —
Bel — Hoa, merging into Mylitta. "Then while this month (of Mary),"
adds Dr. Preston, "begins in the paschal season — the month when nature
decks herself with fruits and flowers, the harbingers of a bright harvest —
let us, too, begin for a golden harvest. In this month the dead comes
up out of the earth, figuring tlie resurrection ; so, when we are kneeling
before the altar of the holy and immaculate Mary, let us remember that
there should come forth from us the bud of promise, the flower of hope,
and the imperishable fruit of sanctity."
This is precisely the substratum of the Pagan thought, which, among
other meanings, emblematized by the rites of the resurrection of Osiris,
Adonis, Bacchus, and other slaughtered sun-gods, the resurrection of all
nature in spring, the germination of seeds that had been dead and sleep-
ing during winter, and so were allegorically said to be kept in the under-
world (Hades). They are typified by the three days passed in hell before
his resurrection by Hercules, by Christ, and others.
This derivation, or rather heresy, as it is called in Christianity, is
simply the Brahmanic doctrine in all its archaic purity. Vishnu, the
second personage of the Hmdu trinity, is also the Logos, for he is made
subsequently to incarnate himself in Christna. And Lakmy (or Lakshmy)
who, as in the case of Osiris, and Isis, of En-Soph and Sephira, and of
Bythos and Ennoia, is both his wife, sister, and daughter, through this
endless correlation of male and female creative powers in the abstruse
metaphysics of the ancient philosophies — is Sophia-Achamoth. Christna
is the mediator promised by Brahma to mankind, and represents the same
idea as the Gnostic Christos. And Lakmy, Vishnu's spiritual half, is the
emblem of physical nature, the universal mother of all the material and
revealed forms ; the mediatrix and protector of nature, like Sophia-Acha-
moth, who is made by the Gnostics the mediatrix between the Great
174 ISIS UNVEILED.
Cause and Matter, as Christos is the mediator between him and spiritual
humanity.
This Brahmano-Gnostic tenet is more logical, and more consistent
with the allegory of Genesis and the fall of man. When God curses the
first couple. He is made to curse also the earth and everything that is on
it. The New Testament gives us a Redeemer for the first sin of mankind,
which was punished for having sinned ; but there is not a word said about
a Saviour who would take off the unmerited curse from the earth and
the animals, which had never sinned at all. Thus the Gnostic allegory
shows a greater sense of both justice and logic than the Christian.
In the Ophite system, Sophia, the Androgyne Wisdom, is also the
female spirit, or the Hindu female Nari (Narayana), moving on the face
of the waters — chaos, or future matter. She vivifies it from afar, but not
touching the abyss of darkness. She is unable to do so, for Wisdom is
l)urely intellectual, and cannot act directly on matter. Therefore, Sophia
is obliged to address herself to her Supreme Parent ; but although life
proceeds primally from the Unseen Cause, and his Ennoia, neither of them
can, any more than herself, have anything to do with the lower chaos in
which matter assumes its definite shape. Thus, Sophia is obliged to
employ on the task her imperfect emanation, Sophia-Achanioth, the latter
being of a mixed nature, half spiritual and half material.
The only difference between the Ophite cosmogony and that of the St.
John Nazarenes is a change of names. We find equally an identical system
in the Kabala, the Book of Mystery {Liber Mysterii). * All the three sys-
tems, especially that of the kabalists and the Nazarenes, which were the
models^ox the Ophite Cosmogony, belong to the pure Oriental Gnosticism.
The Codex Nazaraiis opens with : "The Supreme King of Light, Mano,
the great first one," f etc., the latter being the emanation of Ferho — the
unknown, formless Life. He is the chief of the ^ons, from whom pro-
ceed (or shoot forth) five refulgent rays of Divine light. Mano is Rex
Lucis, the Bythos-Ennoia of the Ophites. " Unus est Rex Lucis in sua
regno, nee uUus qui eo altior, niillus qui ejus similitudinem retulerit, nullus
qui sublatis oculis, viderit Coronam qum in ejus capite est." He is the Man-
ifested Light around the highest of the three kabalistic heads, the concealed
wisdom ; from him emanate the three Lives. /Ebel Zivo is the revealed
Logos, Christos the "Apostle Gabriel," and the first Legate or messenger
of light. If Bythos and Ennoia are the Nazarene Mano, then the dual-
natured, the semi-spiritual, semi-material Achamoth must be Fetahil when
viewed from her spiritual aspect; and if regarded in her grosser nature,
she is the Nazarene " Spiritus."
* See " Idra Magna." \ " Codex Nazartens," part i., p. 9.
THE FIRST GROUPS OF CHRISTIANS. 175
Fetahil,* who is the reflection of his father, Lord Abatiir, the third
life — as the elder Sophia is also the third emanation — is the ." newest-
man." Perceiving his fruitless attempts to create a perfect material
world, the " Spiritus " calls to one of her progeny, the Karabtanos — Ilda-
Baoth — who is without sense or judgment (" blind matter "), to unite him-
self with her to create something definite out of this confused {turbii-
lentos) matter, which task she is enabled to achieve only after having
produced from this union with Karabtanos the seven stellars. Like the
six sons or genii of the Gnostic Ilda-Baoth, they then frame the material
world. The same story is repeated over again in Sophia-Achamoth.
Delegated by her purely spiritual parent, the elder Sophia, to create the
world of visible forms, she descended into chaos, and, overpowered by
the emanation of matter, lost her wa}'. Still ambitious to create a world
of matter of her own, she busied herself hovering to and fro about the
(lark abyss, and imparted life and motion to the inert elements, until she
became so hopelessly entangled in matter that, like Fetahil, she is repre-
sented sitting immersed in mud, and unable to extricate herself from it ;
until, by the contact of matter itself, she produces the Creator of the
material world. He is the Demiurgus, called by the Ophites Ilda-Baoth,
and, as we will directly show, the parent of the Jewish God in the opinion
of some sects, and held by others to be the " Lord God " Himself. It is
at this point of the kabahstic-gnostic cosmogony that begins the Mosaic
Bible. Having accepted the Jewish Old Testament as their standard, no
wonder that the Christians were forced by the exceptional position in
which they were placed through their own ignorance, to make the best
of it.
The first groups of Christians, whom Renan shows numbering but
from seven to twelve men in each church, belonged unquestionably to
the poorest and most ignorant classes. They had and could have no
idea of the highly philosophical doctrines of the Platonists and Gnostics,
and evidently knew as little about their own newly-made-up religion.
To these, who if Jews, had been crushed under the tyrannical dominion
of the "law," as enforced by the elders of the synagogues, and if Pagans
had been always excluded, as the lower castes are until now in India,
from the religious mysteries, the God of the Jews and the "Father"
preached by Jesus were all one. The contention which reigned from the
first years following the death of Jesus, between the two parties, the Pau-
line and the Petrine — were deplorable. What one did, the other deemed
* See "Codex Nazarsens," i., 181. Fetahil, sent to frame the world, finds himself
immersed in the abyss of mud, and soliloquizes in dismay until the Spiritus (Sophia-
Achamoth) unites herself completely with matter, and so creates the material world.
1/6 ISIS UNVEILED.
a sacred duty to undo. If the Homilies are considered apocryphal, and
cannot very well be accepted as an infallible standard by which to meas-
ure the animosity which raged between the two apostles, we have the
Bible, and the proofs afforded therein are plentiful.
So hopelessly entangled seems Irenasus in his fruitless endeavors to
describe, to all outward appearance at least, the true doctrines of the
many Gnostic sects of which he treats and to present them at the same
time as abominable "heresies," that he either deliberately, or through
ignorance, confounds all of them in such a way that few metaphysicians
would be able to disentangle them, without the Kabala and the Codex
as the true keys. Thus, for instance, he cannot even tell the difference
between the Sethianites and the Ophites, and tells us that they called the
" God of all," ^'- Hominem" a man, and his mind the second man, or the
" Son of tnan." So does Theodoret, who lived more than two centuries
after Irenaeus, and who makes a sad mess of the chronological order in
which the various sects succeeded each other.* Neither the Sethianites,
(a branch of the Jewish Nazarenes) nor the Ophites, a purely Greek sect,
have ever held anything of the kind. Irenaeus contradicts his own.
words by describing in another place the doctrines of Cerinthus, the
direct disciple of Simon Magus. He says that Cerinthus taught that the
world was not created by the first GOD, but by a virtue (virtus) or
power, an JEon so distant from the First Cause that he was even ignorant
of HIM who is above all things. This ^on subjected Jesus, he begot him
physically through Joseph from one who was not a virgin, but simply the
wife of that Joseph, and Jesus was born like all other men. Viewed
from this physical aspect of his nature, Jesus was called the " son of man."
It is only after his baptism, that Christos, the anointed, descended from
the Princeliness of above, in the figure of a dove, and then announced the
UNKNOWN Father through Jesus, f
If, therefore, Jesus was physically considered as a son of man, and
spiritually as the Christos, who overshadowed him, how then could the
" GOD OF ALL," the " Unknown Father," be called by the Gnostics Homo,
a MAN, and his Mind, Ennoia, the second man, or Son of mant
Neither in the Oriental Kabala, nor in Gnosticism, was the " God of all"
ever anthropomorphized. It is but the first, or rather the second emana-
tions, for Shekinah, Sephira, Depth, and other first-manifested female
virtues are also emanations, that are termed "primitive men." Thus
Adam Kadmon, Ennoia (or Sig6), the logoi in short, are the "only-be-
gotten" ones but not the Sons of man, which appellation properly be-
* " Irenteus," 37, and Theodoret, quoted in the same page. ,
f Ibid., i. XXV.
CHRIST'S "DESCENT INTO HELL." 1/7
longs to Christos the son of Sophia (the elder) and of the prmiitive man
who produces him through his own vivifying light, which emanates from
the source or cause of all, hence the cause of his light also,' the " Un-
known Father." There is a great difference made in the Gnostic meta-
physics between the first unrevealfid Logos and the "anointed," who is
Christos. Ennoia may be termed, as Philo understands it, the Second
God, but he alone is the "Priraitiv-e and First man," and by no means
the Second one, as Theodoret and Irenasus have it. It is but the inveterate
desire of the latter to connect Jesus in every possible way, even in the
Hxresies, with the Highest God, that led him into so many falsifications.
Such an identification with the Unknown God, even of Christos, the
anointed — the yEon who overshadowed him — let alone of the man Jesus,
never entered the head of the Gnostics nor even of the direct apostles
and of Paul, whatever later forgeries may have added.
How daring and desperate were many such deliberate falsifications
was shown in the first attempts to compare the original manuscripts with
later ones. In Bishop Horseley's edition of Sir Isaac Newton's works,
several manuscripts on theological subjects were cautiously withhel'd
from publication. The article known as Chrisfs Descent into Hell, which
is found in the later Apostles' Creed, is not to be found in the manu-
scripts of either the fourth or sixth centuries. It was an evident interpo-
lation copied from the fables of Bacchus and Hercules and enforced
upon Christendom as an article of faith. Concerning it the author of the
preface to the Catalogue of the Manuscripts of the Kin^ s Library {^xq-
face, p. xxi.) remarks : " I wish that the insertion of the article of Christ s
Descent into Hell into the Apostles' Creed could be as well ac-
counted for as the insertion of the said verse " {First Epistle of John,
V. 7). *
Now, this verse reads : " For there are three that bear record in
Heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost ; and these three are
one." This verse, which has been "appointed to be read in churches,"
is now known to be spurious. It is not to be found in any Greek manu-
script, '■' save one at Berlin, which was transcribed from some interpolated
paraphrase between the lines. In the first and second editions of Eras-
mus, printed in 1516 and 1519, this allusion to these three heavenly wit-
nesses is omitted ; and the text is not contained in any Greek manu-
script which was written earher than the fifteenth century, f It was not
" See preface to the "Apocryphal New Testament," London, printed for W.
Hone, Ludgate Hill, 1S20.
\ " It is first cited by Virgilius Tapsensis, a Latin writer of no credit, in the latter
end of the fifth century, and by him it is suspected to have been forged."
12
1/8 ISIS UNVEILED.
mentioned by either of the Greek ecclesiastical writers nor by the early
Latin fathers, so anxious to get at every proof in support of their trinity ;
and it was omitted by Luther in his German version. Edward Gibbon
was early in pointing out its spurious character. Archbishop Newcome
rejected it, and the Bishop of Lincoln expresses his conviction that it is
spurious. * There are twenty-eight Greek authors — Iren^eus, Clemens,
and Athanasius included, who neither quote nor mention it ; and seven-
teen Latin writers, numbering among them Augustine, Jerome, Ambro-
sius, Cyprian, and Pope Eusebius, who appear utterly ignorant of it.
" It is evident that if the text of the heavenly witnesses had been known
from the beginning of Christianity the ancients would have eagerly seized
it, inserted it in their creeds, quoted it repeatedly against the heretics,
and selected it for the brightest ornament of every book that they wrote
upon the subject of the Trinity." f
Thus falls to the ground the strongest trinitarian pillar. Another not
less obvious forgery is quoted from Sir Isaac Newton's words by the edi-
tor of the Apocryphal New Testament. Newton observes " that what the
Latins have done to this text {First Epistle of John, v.), the Greeks have
done to that of St. Paul {Timothy iii. i6). For, by changing OS into 02,
the abbreviation of ®€os (God), in the Alexandrian manuscript, from which
their subsequent copies were made, they now read, " Great is the mystery
of godliness, God manifested in the flesh j" whereas all the churches, for
the first four or five centuries, and the authors of all the ancient versions,
Jerome, as well as the rest, read : " Great is the mystery of godliness
WHICH WAS manifested in the flesh." Newton adds, that now that the dis-
putes over this forgery are over, they that read God made manifest in
the flesh, instead of the godliness which was manifested in the flesh,
think this passage " one of the most obvious and pertinent texts for the
business."
And now we ask again the question : Who were the first Christians ?
Those who vk^ere readily converted by the eloquent simplicity of Paul, who
promised them, with the name of Jesus, freedom from the narrow bonds of
ecclesiasticism. They understood but one thing ; they were the " chil-
dren of promise" {Galatians iv. 28). The "allegory" of the Mosaic
Bible was unveiled to them ; the covenant " from the Mount Sinai which
giindtreth to bondage" vidis Agar (Ibid., 24), the old Jewish synagogue,
and she was " in bondage with her children " to Jerusalem, the new and
the free, " the mother of us all." On the one hand the synagogue and
the law which persecuted every one who dared to step across the narrow
* "Elements of Theology," vol. ii., p. go, note.
•j- Parson's " Letters to Travis," 8vo. , p. 402.
NIHILISTIC DOCTRINES OF THE SADDUCEES. 1/9
path of bigotry and dogmatism ; on the other, Paganism * with its grand
philosophical truths concealed from sight ; unveiling itself but to the few,
and leaving the masses hopelessly seeking to discover who was the god,
among this overcrowded pantheon of deities and sub-deities. To others,
the apostle of circumcision, supported by all his followers, was promising,
if they obeyed the " law," a life hereafter, and a resurrection of which
they had no previous idea. At the same time he never lost an occasion
to contradict Paul without naming him, but indicating him so clearly
that it is next to impossible to doubt whom Peter meant. While he may
have converted some men, who whether they had believed in the Mosaic
resurrection promised by the Pharisees, or had fallen into the nihilistic
doctrines of the Sadducees, or had belonged to the polytheistic heathen-
ism of the Pagan rabble, had no future after death, nothing but a mourn-
ful blank, we do not think that the work of contradiction, carried on so
systematically by the two apostles, had helped much their work of prose-
lytism. With the educated thinking classes they succeeded very little,
as ecclesiastical history clearly shows. Where was the truth ; where
the inspired word of God ? On the one hand, as we have seen, they
heard the apostle Paul explaining that of the two covenants, " which
things are an allegory," the old one from Mount Sinai, " which gendereth
unto bondage," was Agar the bondwoman ; and Mount Sinai itself
answered to "Jerusalem," which now is "in bondage" with her circum-
cised children ; and the new covenant meant Jesus Christ — the " Jeru-
salem which is above and free ; " and on the other Peter, who was
contradicting and even abusing him." Paul vehemently exclaims,
" Cast out the bondwoman and her son " (the old law and the syna-
gogue). " The son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of
* The term *' Paganism" is properly used by many modern writers with hesitation.
Professor Alexander Wilder, in his edition of Payne Knight's " Symbolical Language of
Ancient Art and Mythology," says : " It {' Paganism ') has degenerated into slang, and
is generally employed with more or less of an opprobrious meaning. The correcter
expression would have been 'the ancient ethnical worships,' but it would be hardly
understood in its true sense, and we accordingly have adopted the term in popular use,
but not disrespectfully. A religion which can develop a Plato, an Epictetus, and an
Anaxagoras, is not gross, superficial, or totally unworthy of candid attention. Besides,
many of the rites and doctrines included in the Christian as well as in the Jewish Insti-
tute, appeared first in the other systems. Zoroastrianism anticipated far more than has
been imagined. The cross, the priestly robes and symbols, the sacraments, the Sabbath,
the festivals and anniversaries, are all anterior to the Christian era by thousands of
years. The ancient worship, after it had been excluded from its former shrines, and
from the metropolitan towns, was maintained for a long time by the inhabitants of
humble localities. To this fact it owes its later designation. From being kept up in
the Pagi, or rural districts, its votaries were denominated Pagans^ or provincials."
l8o ISIS UNVEILED.
the freewoman." " Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ
hath made us free; be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
. . . Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall
profit you nothing!" {Gal. v. 2). What do we find Peter writing?
Whom does he mean by saying, " These who speak great swelling words
of vanity. . . . While they promise them liberty, they themselves are
servants of corruption, for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he
brought in bondage. . . . For if they have escaped the pollution of the
world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour, they are again
entangled therein, and overcome ... it had been better for them not to
have known the way of righteousness, than after they have known it
to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them " (Second
Epistle).
Peter certainly cannot have meant the Gnostics, for they, had never
seen " the holy commandment delivered unto them ; " Paul had. They
never promised any one " liberty " from bondage, but Paul had done so
repeatedly. Moreover the latter rejects the " old covenant," Agar the
bondwoman ; and Peter holds fast to it. Paul warns the people against
the powers and dignities (the lower angels of the kabalists); and Peter,
as will be shown further, respects them and denounces those who do not.
Peter preaches circumcision, and Paul forbids it.
Later, when all these extraordinary blunders, contradictions, dissen-
sions and inventions were forcibly crammed into a frame elaborately
executed by the episcopal caste of the new religion, and called Chris-
tianity ; and the chaotic picture itself cunningly preserved from too
close scrutiny by a whole array of formidable Church penances and
anathemas, which kept the curious back under the false pretense of
sacrilege and profanation of divine mysteries ; and millions of people had
been butchered in the name of the God of mercy — then came the
Reformation. It certainly deserves its name in its fullest parodoxical
sense. It abandoned Peter and alleges to have chosen Paul for its only
leader. And the apostle who thundered against the old law of bond-
age ; who left fall liberty to Christians to either observe the Sabbath or set
it aside ; who rejects everything anterior to John the Baptist, is now the
professed standard-bearer of Protestantism, which holds to the old law
more than the Jews, imprisons those who view the Sabbath as Jesus and
Paul did, and outvies the synagogue of the first century in dogmatic in-
tolerance !
But who then were the first Christians, may still be asked ? Doubt-
less the Ebionites ; and in this we follow the authority of the best critics.
" There can be little doubt that the author (of the Clemcnti7ie Homilies)
was a representative of Ebionitic Gnosticism, which had once been the
JESUS' OWN RELATIVES EBIONITES. l8l
purestjorm of primitive Christianity. . . . " * And who were the Ebion-
ites? The pupils and followers of the early Nazarenes, the kabalistic
Gnostics. In the preface to the 'Codex Nazarceus, the translator says :
" That also the Nazarenes did not reject . . . the yEons is natural. For
of the Ebionites who acknowledged them (the ^ons), these were the in-
structors." f
We find, moreover, Epiphanius, the Christian Homer of The Heresies,
telling us that " Ebion had the opinion of the Nazarenes, the form of the
Cerinthians (who fable that the world was put together by angels), and
the appellation of Christians." \ An appellation certainly more correctly
applied to them than to the orthodox (so-called) Christians of the school
of Irenjeus and the later Vatican. Renan shows the Ebionites num-
bering among their sect all the surviving relatives of Jesus. John the
Baptist, his cousin and precursor, was the accepted Saviour of the Naza-
renes, and their prophet. His disciples dwelt on the other side of the
Jordan, and the scene of the baptism of the Jordan is clearly and beyond
any question proved by the author of Sod, the Son of the Man, to have
been the site of the Adonis-worship. § " Over the Jordan and beyond the
lake dwelt the Nazarenes, a sect said to have existed already at the birth
of Jesus, and to have counted him among its number. They must have
extended along the east of the Jordan, and southeasterly among the Arab-
ians {Galat. i. 17, 21 ; ii. .11), and Sabreans in the direction of Bosra ; and
again, they must have gone far north over the Lebanon to Antioch, also
to the northeast to the Nazarian settlement in Beroea, where St. Jerome
found them. In the desert the Mysteries of Adonis may have still pre-
vailed ; in the mountains Aiai Adonai was still a cry." ||
" Having been united (conjunctus) to the Nazarenes, each (Ebionite)
imparted to the other out of his own wickedness, and decided that Christ
was of the seed of a man," writes Epiphanius.
And if they did, we must suppose they knew more about their con-
temporary prophet than Epiphanius 400 years later. Theodoret, as
shown elsewhere, describes the Nazarenes as Jews who "honor the
Anointed as a just man," and use the evangel called '■'■According to
Peter." Jeroine finds the authentic and original evangel, written in
Hebrew, by Matthew the apostle-publican, in the library collected at
CcBsarea, by the martyr Paraphilius. " / received permission from the
Nazarxans, who at Beroea of Syria used this (gospel) to translate it," he
* "Super. Relig.," vol. ii., p. 5. f Norberg : Preface to '' Cod. Naz.," p. v.
X Epiph. : " Contra Ebionitas." g See preface, from page i to 34.
\ Ibid., p. 7, preface.
1 82 ISIS UNVEILED.
writes toward the end of the fourth century. * " In the evangel vMoh
the Nazarenes and Ebionites use," adds Jerome, "which recently I trans-
lated from Hebrew into Greek, f and which is called by most persons the
genuine Gospel of Matthew," etc.
That the apostles had received a " secret doctrine" from Jesus, and
that he himself taught one, is evident from the following words of Jerome,
who confessed it in an unguarded moment. Writing to the Bishops
Chromatins and HeHodorus, he complains that " a difficult work is
enjoined, since this translation has been commanded me by your Felici-
ties, which St. Matthew himself, the Apostle and Evangelist, did not
WISH TO BE OPENLY WRITTEN. For if it had not been secret, he (Mat-
thew) would have added to the evangel that which he gave forth was
his ; but he made up this book sealed up in the Hebrew characters,
which he put forth even in such a way that the book, written in Hebrew
letters and by the hand of himself, might be possessed by the men most
religious, who also, in the course of time, received it from those who pre-
ceded them. But this very book they never gave to any one to be tran-
scribed, and its text they related some one way and some another." \
And he adds further on the same page : " And it happened that this
book, having been published by a disciple of Manichsus, named Seleucus,
who also wrote falsely The Acts of the Apostles, exhibited matter not for
edification, but for destruction ; and that this book was approved in a
synod which the ears of the Church properly refused to listen to." §
He admits, himself, that the book which he authenticates as being writ-
ten "by the hand of Matthew ;" a book which, notwithstanding that he
* Hieronymus: "De Virus.," illust., cap. 3. " It is remarkable that, while all church
fathers say that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, the whole of them use the Greek text as
the genuine apostolic writing, without mentioning what relation tire Hebrew Matthew
has to our Greek one ! It had many peculiar additwns which are wanting in our
evangel." (Olshausen : " Nachweis der Echtheit der sammtlichen Schriften des
Neuen Test.," p. 32; Dunlap ; "Sod, the Son of the Man," p. 44.)
■]- Hieronymus : '' Commen. to Matthew," book ii., ch. xii., 13. Jerome adds that
it was written in the Chaldaic language, but with Hebrew letters.
X " St. Jerome," v., 445 ; " Sod, the Son of the Man," p. 46.
§ This accounts also for the rejection of the works of Justin Martyr, who used only
this " Gospel according to the Hebrews," as also did most probably Titian, his disciple.
At what late period was fully established the divinity of Christ we can judge by the mere
fact that even in the fourth century Eusebius did not denounce this book as spurious,
but only classed it with such as the Apocalypse of John ; and Credner (" Zur Gesch.
Des Kan.," p. 120) shows Nicephorus inserting it, together with the Revelation, in his
" Stichometry," among the Antilegomena. The Ebionites, the genuine primitive Chris-
tians, rejecting the rest of the apostolic writings, made use only of this Gospel ("Adv.
Hoer."i., 26), and the Ebionites, as Epiphanius declares, firmly believed, with the
Nazarenes, that Jesus was but a man " of the seed of a man."
THE CRAFT OF ST. JEROME. 1 83
translated it twice, was nearly unintelligible to him, for it was arcane
or a secret. Nevertheless, Jerome coolly sets down every commentary
upon it, except his own, as heretical. More than that, Jerome knew
that this original Gospel of Matthew was the expounder of the only true
doctrine of Christ ; and that it was the work of an evangelist who had
been the friend and companion of Jesus. He knew that if of the two
Gospels, the Hebrew in question and the Greek belonging to our present
Scripture, one was spurious, hence heretical, it was not that of the Naza-
renes ; and yet, knowing all this, Jerome becomes more zealous than ever
in his persecutions of the " Hjeretics." Why? Because to accept it
was equivalent to reading the death-sentence of the established Church.
The Gospel according to the Hebrews was but too well known to have
been the only one accepted for four centuries by the Jewish Christians,
the Nazarenes and the Ebionites. And neither of the latter accepted the
divinity of Christ.
If the commentaries of Jerome on the Prophets, his famous Vulgate,
and numerous polemical treatises are all as trustworthy as this version
of the Gospel according to Matthew, then we have a divine revelation
indeed.
Why wonder at the unfathomable mysteries of the Christian religion,
since it is perfectly human 1 Have we not a letter written by one of the
most respected Fathers of the Church to this same Jerome, which shows
better than whole volumes their traditionary policy ? This is what Saint
Gregory of Nazianzen wrote to his friend and confidant Saint Jerome :
" Nothing can impose better on a people than verbiage ; the less they
understand the more they admire. Our fathers and doctors have often
said, not what they thought, but what circumstances and necessity forced
them to."
But to return to our Sophia-Achamoth and the belief of the genuine,
primitive Christians.
After having produced Ilda-Baoth, Ilda from -hi, a child, and Baoth
from ii-iia, the egg, or Mns, Baoth, a waste, a desolation, Sophia-Achamoth
suffered so much from the contact with matter, that after extraordinary
struggles she escapes at last out of the muddy chaos. Although unac-
quainted with the pleroma, the region of her mother, she reached the
middle space and succeeded in shaking off the material parts which
have stuck to her spiritual nature ; after which she immediately built a
strong barrier between the world of intelligences (spirits) and the world
of matter. Ilda-Baoth, is thus the " son of darkness," the creator of our
sinful world (the physical portion of it). He follows the example of
Bythos and produces from himself six stellar spirits (sons). They are all
in his own image, and reflections one of the other, which become darker
1 84 ISIS UNVEILED.
as they successively recede from their father. With the latter, they all
inhabit seven regions disposed like a ladder, beginning under the middle
space, the region of their mother, Sophia-Achamoth, and ending with our
earth, the seventh region. Thus they are the genii of the seven planetary
spheres of which the lowest is the region of our earth (the sphere which
surrounds it, our aether). The respective names of these genii of the
spheres are Imie (Jehovah), Sabaoth, Adonai, Eloi, Ouraios, Astaphaios*
The first four, as every one knows, are the mystic names of the Jewish
" Lord God," f he being, as C. W. King expresses it, " thus degraded by the
Ophites into the appellations of the subordinates of the Creator ; "the
two last names are those of the genii of fire and water."
Ilda-Baoth, whom several sects regarded as the God of Moses, was
not a pure spirit ; he was ambitious and proud, and rejecting the spirit-
ual light of the middle space offered him by his mother Sophia-Achamoth,
he set himself to create a world of his own. Aided by his sons, the six
planetary genii, he fabricated man, but this one proved a failure. It
was a monster ; soulless, ignorant, and crawling on all fours on the
ground like a material beast. Ilda-Baoth was forced to implore the help
of his spiritual mother. She communicated to him a ray of her divine
light, and so animated man and endowed him with a soul. And now
began the animosity of Ilda-Baoth toward his own creature. Following
the impulse of the divine light, man soared higher and higher in his aspi-
rations ; very soon he began presenting not the image of his Creator
Ilda-Baoth but rather that of the Supreme Being, the " primitive man,"
Ennoia, Then the Uemiurgus was filled with rage and envy ; and fixing
his jealous eye on the abyss of matter, his looks envenomed with passion
were suddenly reflected in it as in a mirror ; the reflection became ani-
mate, and there arose out of the abyss Satan, serpent, Ophiomorphos —
" the embodiment of envy and of cunning. He is the union of all that
is most base in matter, with the hate, envy, and craft of a spiritual intel-
ligence." J
After that, always in spite at the perfection of man, Ilda-Baoth created
the three kingdoms of nature, the mineral, vegetable, and animal, with all
evil instincts and properties. Impotent to annihilate the Tree of Knowl-
edge, which grows in his sphere as in every one of the planetary regions,
but bent upon detaching "man" from his spiritual protectress, Ilda-Baoth
forbade him to eat of its fruit, for fear it should reveal to mankind the
* See King's "Gnostics," p. 31.
\ This love, lao, or Jehovali is quite distinct from the God of the Mysteries, Iao,
held sacred by all the nations of antiquity. We will show the difference presently.
\ King's " Gnostics."
THE REVENGE OF ILDA-BAOTH. 1 85
mysteries of the superior world. But Sophia-Achanioth, who loved and
protected the man whom she had animated, sent her own genius Ophis, in
the form of a serpent to induce man to transgress the selfish and unjust
conmiand. And " man " suddenly became capable of comprehending
the mysteries of creation.
Ilda-Baotli r&venged himself by punishing the first pair, for man,
through his knowledge, had already provided for himself a companion out
of his spiritual and material half. He imprisoned man and woman in a
Jungeon of matter, in the body so unworthy of his nature, wherein man
is still enthralled. But Achamoth protected him still. She established
between her celestial region and " man," a current of divine light, and
kept constantly supplying him with this spiritual illumination.
Then follow allegories embodying the idea of dualism, or the struggle
between good and evil, spirit and matter, which is found in every cos-
mogony, and the source of which is again to be sought in India. The
types and antit}'pes represent the heroes of this Gnostic Pantheon, bor-
rowed from the most ancient mythopceic ages. But, in these personages,
Opliis and Ophiomorphos, Sophia and Sophia-Achamoth, Adam-Kadmon,
and Adam, the planetary genii and the divine .^ons, we can also recog-
nize very easily the models of our bibhcal copies — the euhemerized pa-
triarchs. The archangels, angels, virtues and powers, are all found, under
other names, in the Vedas and the Buddhistic system. The Avestic
Supreme Being, Zero-ana, or " Boundless Time," is the type of all these
Gnostic and kabalistic " Depths," " Crowns," and even of the Chaldean
En-Soph. The six Amshaspands, created through the "Word" of Or-
mazd, the " First-Born," have their reflections in Bythos and his emana-
tions, and the antitype of Ormazd — Ahriman and his devs also enter
into the composition of Ilda-Baoth and his six material, though not wholly
evil, planetary genii.
Achamoth, afflicted with the evils which befall humanity, notwithstand-
ing her protection, beseeches the celestial mother Sophia — her antitype —
to prevail on the unknown Depth to send down Christos (the son and
emanation of the " Celestial Virgin ") to the help of perishing humanity.
Ilda-Baoth and his six sons of matter ate shutting out the divine light
from mankind. Man must be saved. Ilda-Baoth had already sent his
own agent, John the Baptist, from the race of Seth, whom he protects — as
a prophet to his people ; but only a small portion listened to him — the
Nazarenes, the opponents of the Jews, on account of their worshipping
lurbo-Adunai.* Achamoth had assured her son, Ilda-Baoth, that the
* lurbo and Adunai, according to the Ophites, are names of lao- Jehovah, one of the
emanations of Ilda-Baoth. " lurbo is called by the Abortions (the Jews) Adunai "
(■'Codex Nazarasus," vol. iii., p. 73).
1 86 ISIS UNVEILED.
reign of Christos would be only temporal, and thus induced him to send
the forerunner, or precursor. Besides that, she made him cause the birth
of the Jiian Jesus from the Virgin Mary, her own type on earth, "for
the creation of a material personage could only be the work of the Demi-
urgus, not falling within the province of a higher power. As soon as
Jesus was born, Christos, the perfect, uniting himself with Sophia (wisdom
and spirituality), descended through the seven planetary regions, assum-
ing in each an analogous form, and concealing his true nature fi'oni their
genii, while he attracted into himself the sparks of divine light which they
retained in their essence. Thus, Christos entered into the mati Jesus at
the moment of his baptism in the Jordan. From that time Jesus began
to work miracles ; before that, he had been completely ignorant of his
mission." *
Ilda-Baoth, discovering that Christos was bringing to an end his own
kingdom of matter, stirred up the Jews against him, and Jesus was put to
death, f When on the Cross, Christos and Sophia left his body and re-
turned to their own sphere. The material body of the man Jesus was
abandoned to the earth, but he himself was given a body made up of
ather (astral soul). " Thenceforward he consisted of merely soul and
spirit, which was the reason wh)' the disciples did not recognize him after
the resurrection. In this spiritual state of a simulacrum, Jesus remained
on earth for eighteen months after he had risen. During this last
sojourn, " he received from Sophia that perfect knowledge, that true
Gnosis, which he communicated to the very few among the apostles who
were capable of receiving the same."
" Thence, ascending up into the middle space, he sits on the right
hand of Ilda-Baoth, but unperceived by him, and there collects all the
souls which shall have been purified by the knowledge of Christ. When
he has collected all the spiritual light that exists in matter, out of Ilda-
Baoth's empire, the redemption will be accomplished and the world will
be destroyed. Such is the meaning of the re-absorption of all the spir-
itual light into the pleroma or fulness, whence it originally descended."
* King: " The Gnostics and their Remains," p. 31.
\ In the " Gospel of Nicodemus," Ilda-Baoth is called Satan by the pious and anony-
mous author ; — evidently, one of the final flings at the half-crushed enemy. " As for
me," says Satan, excusing himself to the prince of hell, " I tempted him (Jesus), and
stirred up my old people, the Jews, against him" (chap. xv. 9). Of all examples of
Christian ingratitude this seems almost the most conspicuous. The poor Jews are first
robbed of their sacred books, and then, in a spurious " Gospel," are insulted by the repre-
sentation of Satan claiming them as his "old people." If they were his people, and at
the same time are " God's chosen people," then the name of this God must be written
Satan and not Jehovah. This is logic, but we doubt if it can be regarded as compli
mentary to the " Lord God of Israel."
THE REAL OPHITE THEOGONY. 1 87
The foregoing is from the description given by Theodoret and adopted
by King in his Gnostics, with additions from Epiphanius apd Irenaeus.
But the former gives a very imperfect version, concocted partly from the
descriptions of Irenasus, and partly from his own knowledge of the later
Ophites, who, toward the end of the third century, had blended already
with several other sects. Irenajus also confounds them very frequently,
and the real theogony of the Ophites is given by none of them correctly.
With the exception of a change in names, the above-given theogony is
that of all the Gnostics, and also of the Nazarenes. Ophis is but the
successor of the Egyptian Chnuphis, the Good Serpent with a lion's radi-
ating head, and was held from days of the highest antiquity as an emblem
of wisdom, or Thauth, the instructor and Saviour of humanity, the " Son
of God." " Oh men, live soberly . . . win your immortality ! " exclaims
Hermes, the thrice-great Trismegistus. " Instructor and guide of human-
ity, I will lead you on to salvation." Thus the oldest sectarians regarded
Ophis, the Agathodsemon, as identical with Christos ; the serpent being
the emblem of celestial wisdom and eternity, and, in the present case, the
antitype of the Egyptian Chnuphis-serpent. These Gnostics, the earliest
of our Christian era, held : " That the supreme yEon, having emitted other
yEons out of himself, one of them, a female, Prunnikos (concupiscence),
descended into the chaos, whence, unable to escape, she remained sus-
pended in the mid-space, being too clogged by matter to return above, and
not falling lower where there was nothing in affinity with her nature. She
then produced her son Ilda-Baoth, the God of the Jews, who, in his turn,
produced seven ^ohs, or angels,* who created the seven heavens."
In this plurality of heavens the Christians believed from the first, for
we find Paul teaching of their existence, and speaking of a man "caught
up to the third heaven" (2 Corin., xiii.). " Erom these seven angels
Ilda-Baoth shut up all that was above him, lest they should know of any-
thing superior to himself f They then created man in the image of their
Father, | but prone and crawling on the earth like a worm. But the
heavenly mother, Prunnikos, wishing to deprive Ilda-Baoth of the power
* This is the Nazarene system ; the Spiritus, after uniting herself with Karabtanos
{matter^ turbulent and senseless), brings forth seven badly-disposed stellars^ in the Orcus ;
*' Seven Figures," which she bore " witless" ( "Codex Nazarseus," i., p. iiS). Justin
Martyr evidently adopts this idea, for he tells us of "the sacred prophets, who say that
one and the same spirit is divided into scv.en spirits (pneumata). " Justin ad Grsecos ; "
"Sod," vol. ii., p. 52. In the Apocalypse the Holy Spirit is subdivided into "seven
spirits before the throne," from the Persian Mithraic mode of classifying.
f This certainly looks like the ^'Jealous God" of the Jews.
X It is the Elohim (plural) who create Adam, and do not wish man to become "as
one of cs."
1 88 ISIS UNVEILED.
with which she had unwittingly endowed him, infused into mftn a celestial
spark— the spirit. Immediately man rose upon his feet, soared in mind
beyond the limits of the seven spheres, and glorified the Supreme Father,
Him that is above Ilda-Baoth. Hence, the latter, full of jealousy, cast
down his eyes upon the lowest stratum of matter, and begot a potency in
the form of a serpent, whom they (the Ophites) call his son. Eve, obey-
ing him as the son of God, was persuaded to eat of the Tree of Knowledge.*
It is a self-evident fact that the serpent of the Genesis, who appears
suddenly and without any preliminary introduction, must have been the
antitype of the Persian Arch-Devs, whose head is Ash-Mogh, the " two-
footed serpent of Hes." If the ^iW^-serpent had been deprived of his
Hmbs before he had tempted woman unto sin, why should God specify as
a punishment that he should go " upon his belly ? " Nobody supposes
that he walked upon the extremity of his tail.
This controversy about the supremacy of Jehovah, between the Pres-
byters and Fathers on the one hand, and the Gnostics, the Nazarenes,
and all the sects declared heterodox, as a last resort, on the other, lasted
till the days of Constantine, and later. That the peculiar ideas of the
Gnostics about the genealogy of Jehovah, or the proper place that had
to be assigned, in the Christian-Gnostic Pantheon, to the God of the Jews,
were at first deemed neither blasphemous nor heterodox is evident
in the difterence of opinions held on this question by Clemens of Alex-
andria, for instance, and Tertullian. The former, who seems to have
known of Basilides better than anybody else, saw nothing heterodox or
blamable in the mystical and transcendental views of the new Refor-
mer. " In his eyes," remarks the author of The Gnostics, speaking of
Clemens, " Basihdes was not a heretic, i.e., an innovator as regards the
doctrines of the Christian Church, but a mere theosophic philosopher,
who sought to express ancient truths under new forms, and perhaps to
combine them with the new faith, the truth of which he could admit
without necessarily renouncing the old, exactly as 'is the case with the
learned Hindus of our day." f
Not so with Irenasus and Tertullian.J The principal works of the
latter against the Heretics, were written after his separation from the
Catholic Church, when he had ranged himself among the zealous fol-
lowers of Montanus ; and teem with unfairness and bigoted prejudice. §
* Theodoret : " Hasret. ; " King's "Gnostics."
f " Gnostics and their Remains," p. 78.
I Some persons hold that he was Bishop of Rome ; others, of Carthage.
§ His polemical work addressed against the so-called orthodox Church — the Cath-
olic— notwithstanding its bitterness and usual style of vituperation, is far more fair, con-
sidering that the " great African" is said to have been expelled from the Church of
tertullian's abuse of basilides. 189
He has exaggerated every Gnostic opinion to a monstrous absurdity,
and his arguments are not based on coercive reasoning but simply on
the blind stubbornness of a partisan fanatic. Discussing Basilides, the
" pious, god-like, theosophic philosopher," as Clemens of Alexandria
thought him, TertuUian exclaims : " After this, Basilides, the heretic,
broke loose. * He asserted that there is a Supreme God, by name
Abraxas, by whom Mind was created, whom the Greeks call Nous.
From her emanated the \Vord ; from the Word, Providence ; from Prov-
idence, Virtue and Wisdom ; from these two again, Virtues, Principal-
ities, f ami Powers were made ; thence infinite productions and emis-
sions of angels. Among the lowest angels, indeed, and those that
made this world, he sets last of all the god of the Jews, whom he denies
to be God himself, affirming that he is but one of the angels." \
It would be equally useless to refer to the direct apostles of Christ,
and show them as- holding in their controversies that Jesus never made
any difference between his " Father " and the " Lord-God " of Moses.
For the Clementine Homilies, in which occur the greatest argumentations
upon the subject, as shown in the disputations alleged to have taken
place between Peter and Simon the Magician, are now also proved to
have been falsely attributed to Clement the Roman. This work, if written
by an Eblonite — as the author of Supernatural Religion declares in com-
mon with some other commentators § — must have been written either far
later than the Pauline period, generally assigned to it, or the dispute
Rome. If we believe St. Jerome, it is but the envy and the unmerited calumnies of
the early Roman clergy against TertuUian which forced him to renounce the Catholic
Church and become a Montanisl. However, were the unlimited admiration of St.
Cyprian, who terms TertuUian *' The Master," and his estimate of him merited, we
would see less error and paganism in the Church of Rome. The expression of Vin-
cent of Lerius, " that every word of TertuUian was a sentence, and every sentence a
triumph over error, ''^ does not seem very happy when" we think of the respect paid
to TertuUian by the Church of Rome, notwithstanding his partial apostasy and the
errors in which the latter still abides and has even enforced upon the world as i?ifalli-
ble dogmas.
* Were not the views of the Phrygian Bishop Montanus, also deemed a HERESY
by the Church of Rome ? It is quite extraordinary to see how easily the Vatican
encourages the abuse of one heretic TertuUian, against another heretic Basilides, when
the abuse happens to further her own object.
f Does not Paul himself speak of "Principalities and Powers in heavenly
places " (Ephesians iii. 10 ; i. 21), and confess that there be gods many and Lords many
(Kurioi) ? And angels, powers (Dunameis), and Principalities? (See I Corinthians,
viii. 5 ; and Epistle to Romans, viii. 38.)
I TertuUian : " Praescript "
§ Baur ; Credner ; HUgenfeld ; Kirchhofer ; Lechler ; Nicolas ; Ritschl ; Schweg-
ler; Westcott, and Zeller ; see " Supernatural Religion," vol. ii., p. 2.
I90 ISIS UNVEILED.
about the identity of Jehovah with God, the " Father of Jesus," have
been distorted by later interpolations. This disputation is in its very
essence antagonistic to the early doctrines of the Ebionites. The latter,
as demonstrated by Epiphanius and Theodoret, were the direct follow-
ers of the Nazarene sect* (the Sabians), the " Disciples of John." He
says, unequivocally, that the Ebionites believed in the jEons (emana-
tions), that the Nazarenes were their mstructors, and that " each imparted
to the other out of his own wickedness." Therefore, holding the same
behefs as the Nazarenes did, an Ebionite would not have given even so
much chance to the doctrine supported by Peter in the Homilies. The
old Nazarenes, as well as the later ones, whose views are embodied in
the Codex Nazarceus, never called Jehovah otherwise than Adonai,
lurbo, the God of the Abortive \ (the orthodox Jews). They kept
their beliefs and religious tenets so secret that even Epiphanius, writing
as early as the end of the fourth century, J confesses his ignorance as to
their real doctrine. " Dropping the name of Jesus," says the Bishop of
Salamis, " they neither call themselves lessacns, nor continue to hold the
name of the Jews, nor name themselves Christians, but Nazarenes . . .
The resurrection of the dead is confessed by them . . . but concerning
Christ, I cannot say whether they think him a mere man, or as the truth
is, confess that he was born through the Jlofy Pneuma from the Vir-
gin-"§
While Simon Magus argues in the Homilies from the standpoint of
every Gnostic (Nazarenes and Ebionites included), Peter, as a true
apostle of circumcision, holds to the old Law and, as a matter of course,
seeks to blend his belief in the divinity of Christ with his old Faith in
the "Lord God" and ex-protector of the "chosen people." As the
author of Supernatural Religion shows, the Epitome, || " a blending of
the other two, probably intended to purge them from heretical doc-
trine " \ and, together with a great majority of critics, assigns to the
Homilies, a date not earlier than the end of the third century, we may
well infer that they must differ widely with their original, if there ever
was one. Simon the Magician proves throughout the whole work that
* See Epiphanius : " Contra Ebionitas."
f The Ophites, for instance, made of Adonai the third son of Ilda-Baoth, a
malignant genius, and, lilie his other five brothers, a constant enemy and adversary of
man, whose divine and immortal spirit gave man the means of becoming the rival of
these genii,
X The Bishop of Salamis died A.D. 403. § " Epiphanius," i., 122, 123.
II The "Clementines " are composed of three parts — to vfit : the Homilies, the Re-
cognitions, and an Epitome.
•[ " Supernatural Religion," vol. ii., p. 2.
PROOF THAT JESUS TAUGHT ESOTERICALLY. 191
the Demiurgus, the Architect of the World, is not the highest Deity ;
and he bases his assertions upon the words of- Jesus himself, who states
repeatedly that " no man knew the Father." Peter is made in the
Homilies to repudiate, with a great show of indignation, the assertion that
the Patriarchs were not deemed worthy to know the Father ; to which
Simon objects again by quoting the words of Jesus, who thanks the
" Lord of Heaven and earth that what was concealed from the wise "
he has " revealed to babes," proving very logically that according to
these very words the Patriarchs could not have known the " Father."
Then Peter argues, in his turn, that the expression, " what is concealed
from the wise," etc., referred to the concealed mysteries of the creation.*
This argumentation of Peter, therefore, had it even emanated from
the apostle himself, instead of being a " religious romance," as the author
of Supernatural Religion calls it, would prove nothing whatever in favor
of the identity of the God of the Jews, with the " Father " of Jesus. At
best it would only demonstrate that Peter had remained from first to last
'■ an apostle of circumcision," a Jew faithful to his old law, and a defender
of the Old Testament. This conversation proves, moreover, the weak-
ness of the cause he defends, for we see in the apostle a man who,
although in most intimate relations with Jesus, can furnish us nothing in
the way of direct proof that he ever thought of teaching that the all-wise
and all-good Paternity he preached was the morose and revengeful thun-
derer of Mount Sinai. But what the Homilies do prove, is again our
assertion that there was a secret doctrine preached by Jesus to the few
who were deemed worthy to become its recipients and custodians. "And
Peter said : ' We remember that our Lord and teacher, as commanding,
said to us, guard the mysteries for me, and the sons of my house. Where-
fore also he explained to his disciples, privately, the mysteries of the king-
doms of the heavens.' " f
If we now recall the fact that a portion of the Mysteries of the
" Pagans " consisted of the awoppi^Ta, aporrheta, or secret discourses ; that
the secret Logia or discourses of Jesus contained in the original Gospel
according to Matthew, the meaning and interpretation of which St. Jerome
confessed to be "a difficult task" for him to achieve, were of the same
nature ; and if we remember, further, that to some of the interior or final
Mysteries only a very select few were admitted ; and that finally it was
from the number of the latter that were taken all the ministers of the holy
" Pagan " rites, we will then clearly understand this expression of Jesus
quoted by Peter : " Guard the Mysteries for me and the sons of my
* " Homilies," xviii., 1-15.
\ " Clementine Homilies;" "Supernatural Religion," vol. ii.
192 ISIS UNVEILED.
house" i.e., of iny doctrine. And, if we understand it rightly, we cannot
avoid thinking that this "secret" doctrine of Jesus, even the technical
expressions of which are but so many duplications of the Gnostic and
Neo-platonic mystic phraseology — that this doctrine, we say, was based
on the same transcendental philosophy of Oriental Gnosis as the rest of
the religions of those and earliest days. That none of the later Christian
sects, despite their boasting, were the inheritors of it, is evident from the
contradictions, blunders, and clumsy repatching of the mistakes of every
preceding century by the discoveries of the succeeding one. These mis-
takes, in a number of manuscripts claimed to be authentic, are sometimes
so ridiculous as to bear on their face the evidence of being pious forgeries.
Thus, for instance, the utter ignorance of some patristic champions of
the very gospels they claimed to defend. We have mentioned the accu-
sation against Marcion by Tertullian and Epiphanius of mutilating the
Go.<:pel ascribed to Luke, and erasing from it that which is now proved
to have never been in that Gospel at all. Finally, the method adopted
by Jesus of speaking in parables, in which he only followed the example
of his sect, is attributed in the Homilies to a prophecy of Isaiah ! Peter
is made to remark : " For Isaiah said : ' I will open my mouth in para-
bles, and I will utter things that have been kept secret from the founda-
tion of the world.' " This erroneous reference to Isaiah of a sentence
given in Psalms Ixxviii. 2, is found not only in the apocryphal Homilies,
but also in the Sinaitic Codex. Commenting on the fact in the Super-
natural Religion, the author states that "Porphyry, in the third century,
twitted Christians with this erroneous ascription by their inspired evange-
list to Isaiah of a passage from a Psalm, and reduced the Fathers to great
straits." * Eusebius and Jerome tried to get out of the difficulty by
ascribing the mistake to an " ignorant scribe ; " and Jerome even went
to the length of asserting that the name of Isaiah never stood after the
above sentence in any of the old codices, but that the name of Asaph was
found in its place, only " ignorant men had removed it." f To this, the
author again observes that " the fact is that the reading ' Asaph ' for
' Isaiah ' is not found in any manuscript extant ; and, although ' Isaiah '
has disappeared from all but a few obscure codices, it cannot be denied
that the name anciently stood in the text. In the Sinaitic Codex, which
is probably the earliest manuscript extant . . . and which is assigned to
the fourth century," he adds, " the prophet Isaiah stands in the text by
the first hand, but is erased by the second." \
It is a most suggestive fact that there is not a word in the so-called
* '* Supernatural Religion," p. 11.
f Hieron.: " Opp.," vii., p. 270, ff. ; " Supernatural Religion," p. 11.
X Ibid.
HE NEVER CLAIMED TO BE GOD. I93
sacred Scriptures to show that Jesus was actually regarded as a God by
his disciples. Neither before nor after his death did they pay him divine
honors. Their relation to him was only that of disciples and " master ; "
by which name they addressed him, as the followers of Pythagoras and
Plato addressed their respective masters before them. Whatever words
may have been put into the mouths of Jesus, Peter, John, Paul, and
others, there is not a single act of adoration recorded on their part, nor
did Jesus himself ever declare his identity with his Father. He accused
the Pharisees oi stoning their prophets, not of deicide. He termed him-
self the son of God, but took care to assert repeatedly that they were
all the children of God, who was the Heavenly Father of all. In preach-
ing this, he but repeated a doctrine taught ages earlier by Hermes,
Plato, and other philosophers. Strange contradiction ! Jesus, whom we
are asked to worship as the one living God, is found, immediately after
his Resurrection, saying to Mary Magdalene : " I am not yet ascended
to my Father ; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto
my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God ! " {John
XX. 17.)
Does this look like identifying himself with his Father ? " My Father
zx^Ayour Father, my God axiA your God," implies, on his part, a desire to
be considered on a perfect equality with his brethren — nothing more.
Theodoret writes : " The hseretics agree with us respecting the beginning
of all things. . . . But they say there is not one Christ (God), but one
above, and the other below. And this last formerly dwelt in many ;
but the Jesus, they at one time say is from God, at another they
call him a Spirit." * This spirit is the Christos, the messenger
of life, who is sometimes called the Angel Gabriel (in Hebrew, the
mighty one of God), and who took with the Gnostics the place of the
Logos, while the Holy Spirit was considered Life, f With the sect of
the Nazarenes, though, the Spiritus, or Holy Ghost, had less honor.
While nearly every Gnostic sect considered it a Female Power, whether
they called it Binah, nJ'^a, Sophia, the Divine Intellect, with the Naza-
rene sect it was the Female Spiritus, the astral light, the genetrix of all
things of matter, the chaos in its evil aspect, made turhido by the Demi-
urge. At the creation of man, " it was light on the side of the Father,
and it was light (material light) on the side of the mother. And this
is the ' twojold man,' " J says the Sohar. " That day (the last one) will
perish the seven badly-disposed stellars, also the sons of man, who have
confessed the Spiritus, the Messias (false), the Deus, and the Mother
of the Spiritus shall perish." § _
* Theodoret : " Ha:ret. Fab.," ii., vii. \ See " Irenxus," I., xii., p. 86.
X " Ausziige aus dem Sohar," p. 12. § " Cod. Naz.," vol. ii., p. 149.
13
194 ISIS UNVEILED.
Jesus enforced and illustrated his doctrines with signs and wonders ;
and if we lay aside the claims advanced on his behalf by his deifiers, he
did but what other kabalists did ; and only they at that epoch, when, for
two centuries the sources of prophecy had been completely dried up, and
from this stagnation of public " miracles " had originated the skepticism
of the unbelieving sect of the Sadducees. Describing the " heresies " of
those days, Theodoret, who has no idea of the hidden meaning of the
word Christos, the anointed messenger, complains that they (the Gnostics)
assert that this Messenger or Delegatus changes his body from time to
time, " and goes into other bodies, and at each time is differently mani-
fested. And these (the overshadowed prophets) use incantations and
invocations of various demons and baptisms in the confession of their
principles. . . . They embrace astrology and magic, and the mathematical
error," (?) he says. *
This " mathematical error," of which the pious writer complains, led
subsequently to the rediscovery of the heliocentric system, erroneous as
it may still be, and forgotten since the days of another "magician " who
taught it — Pvthagoras. Thus, the wonders of healing and the thaums
of Jesus, which he imparted to his followers, show that they were learn-
ing, in their daily communication with him, the theory and practice of
the new ethics, day by day, and in the famihar intercourse of intimate
friendship. Their faith was progressively developed, like that of all
neophytes, simultaneously with the increase of knowledge. We must
bear in mind that Josephus, who certainly must have been welhinformed
on the subject, calls the skill of expelHng demons " a science." This
growth of faith is conspicuously shown in the case of Peter, who, from
having lacked enough faith to support him while he could walk on the
water from the boat to his Master, at last became so expert a thaumatur-
gist, that Simon Magus is said to have offered him money to teach hini
the secret of healing, and other wonders. And Phihp is shown to have
become an yEthrobat as good as Abaris of Pythagorean memory, but less
expert than Simon Magus.
Neither in the Homilies nor any other early work of the apostles, is there
anything to show that either of his friends and followers regarded Jesus
as anything more than a prophet. The idea is as clearly established in
the Clementines. Except that too much room is afforded to Peter to estab-
lish the identity of the Mosaic God with the Father of Jesus, the whole
work is devoted to Monotheism. The author seems as bitter against
Polytheism as against the claim to the divinity of Christ.f He seems
* Theodoret : " Ilseret. Fab.," ii., vii.
f " Homilies," xvi., I5ff.;ii., 12; iii., 57-59; x., 19. Schliemann : " Die Clemen-
tinem," p. 134 ff; " Supernatural Religion," vol. ii., p. 349.
THE SOURCE OF CHRIST'S INSPIRATION. 195
to be utterly ignorant of the Logos, and his speculation is confined to
Sophia, the Gnostic wisdom. There is no trace in it of a hypostatic
trinity, but the same overshadowing of the Gnostic " wisdom (Christos
and Sophia) is attributed in the case of Jesus as it is in those of Adam,
Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. * These personages
are all placed on one level, and called ' true prophets,' and the seven
pillars of the world." More than that, Peter vehemently denies the fall
of Adam, and with him, the doctrine of atonement, as taught by Christian
theology, utterly falls to the ground, for he combats it as a blasphemy, f
Peter's theory of sin is that of the Jewish kabalists, and even, in a certain
way, Platonic. Adam not only never sinned, but, " as a true prophet,
possessed of the Spirit of God, which afterwards was in Jesus, could not
sin." \ In short, the whole of the work exhibits the. belief of the author
in the kabahstic doctrine of permutation. The Kabala teaches the doc-
trine of transmigration of the spirit. § " Mosah is the revolutio of Seth
and Hebel." ||
" Tell me who it is who brings about the re-birth (the revolutio) ? "
is asked of the wise Hermes. " God's Son, the o?ily ma?i, through the
will of God," is the answer of the " heathen." •f
" God's son " is the immortal spirit assigned to every human being.
It is this divine entity which is the " only man" for the casket which con-
tains our soul, and the soul itself, are but half-entities, and without its
overshadowing both body and astral soul, the two are but an animal diiad.
It requires a trinity to form the complete " man," and allow him to re-
main immortal at every " re-birth," or revolutio, throughout the subse-
quent and ascending spheres, every one of which brings him nearer to the
refulgent realm of eternal and absolute Kght.
"God's First-born, who is the 'holy Veil,' the 'Light of Lights,'
it is he who sends the revolutio of the Delegatus, for he is the First
Power" says the kabalist. **
" The pneuma (spirit) and the dunamis (power), which is from the
God, it is right to consider nothing else than the Logos, who is also (?)
First-begotten to the God," argues a Christian, ff
" Angels and powers are in heaven ! " says Justin, thus bringing
forth a purely kabalistic doctrine. The Christians adopted it from the
* "Homilies," Hi., 20 f ; il, 16-18, etc. flbid., iii., 20 ff.
t Schliemann : " Die Clementinem," pp. 130-176; quoted also in "Supernatural
Religion," p. 342.
§ We will speak of this doctrine further on.
1 "Kabbala Denudata," vol. il, p. 155 ; " Vallis Rcgia."
T[ " Hermes " X., iv., -21-23. ** Idra Magna : " Kabbala Denudata."
ft Justin Martyr: " Apol," vol. ii., p. 74.
196 ISIS UNVEILED.
Sohar and the h;eretical sects, and if Jesus mentioned them, it was not in
the official synagogues that he learned the theory, but directly in the
kabalistic teachings. In the Mosaic books, very little mention is made
of them, and Moses, who holds direct communications with the " Lord
God," troubles himself very little about them. The doctrine was a
secret one, and deemed by the orthodox synagogue heretical. Josephus
calls the Essenes heretics, saying : " Those admitted among the Essenes
must swear to communicate their doctrines to no one any otherwise than
as he received them himself, and equally to preserve the books belong-
ing to their sect, and the names of the angels. * The Sadducees did not
believe in angels, neither did the uninitiated Gentiles, who limited their
Olympus to gods and demi-gods, or " spirits." Alone, the kabalists and
• leurgists hold to that doctrine from time immemorial, and, as a conse-
quence, Plato, and Philo Judaeus after him, followed first by the Gnos-
tics, and then by the Christians.
Thus, if Josephus never wrote the famous interpolation forged by
Eusebius, concerning Jesus, on the other hand, he has described in
the Essenes all the principal features that we find prominent in the Naza-
rene. When praying, they sought solitude, f " When thou prayest,
enter into thy closet . . . and pray to thy Father which is in secret "
{Matthew vi. 6). "Everything spoken by them (Essenes) is stronger
than an oath. Swearing is shunned by them " [Josephus 11., viii., 6). "But
I say unto you, swear not at all . . . but let your communication be yea,
yea; nay, nay" {Matthew v. 34-37).
The Nazarenes, as well as the Essenes and the Therapeutje, believed
more in their own interpretations of the " hidden sense " of the more an-
cient Scriptures, than in the later laws of Moses. Jesus, as we have
shown before, felt but little veneration for the commandments of his pre-
decessor, with whom Irenaeus is so anxious to connect him.
The Essenes "enter into the houses of those whom they never saiv
previously, as if they were their intimate friends" (Josephus II., viii., 4)-
Such was undeniably the custom of Jesus and his disciples.
Epiphanius, who places the Ebionite " heresy " on one level with that
of the Nazarenes, also remarks that the Nazaraioi come next to the
Cerinthians,J so much vituperated against by Irenseus. §
* Josephus: "Wars," II., chap. 8. sec. 7.
f See Josephus; Philo; Munk (35). Eusebius mentions their semneion, where
they perform the mysteries of a retired life (" Ecclesiastic History," lib. ii., ch. 17).
X " Epiphanius," ed. Petau, i., p. 117.
^ Cerinthus is the same Gnostic — a contemporaiy of John the Evangelist — of whom
IreniEus invented the following anecdote : " There are those who heard him (Poly-
carp) say that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving
THE ANCIENT AND MODERN NABATHEANS. 1 97
Munk, in his work on Palestine, affirms that there were 4,000 Essenes
living in the desert ; that they had their mystical books, and predicted the
future. * The Nabatheans, with very little difference indeed,' adhered to
the same belief as the Nazarenes and the Sabeans, and all of them
honored John the Baptist more than his successor Jesus. The Persian
lezidi say that they originally came to Syria from Busrah. They use
baptism, and believe in seven archangels, though paying at the same time
reverence to Satan. Their prophet lezed, who flourished long prior to
Mahomet, f taught that God will send a messenger, and that the latter
would reveal to him a book which is already written in heaven from the
eternity. X The Nabatheans inhabited the Lebanon, as their descendants
do to the present day, and their religion was from its origin purely kab-
alistic. Maimonides speaks of them as if he identified them with the Sab-
eans. " I will mention to thee the writings . . . respecting the belief and
institutions of the Sabeans,'' he says. "The most famous is the book The
Agriculture of the Nabathaans, which has been translated by Ibn Waho-
hijah. This book is full of heathenish foolishness. ... It speaks of the
preparations of Talismans, the drawing down of the powers of the Spirits,
Magic, Demons, and ghouls, which make their abode in the desert." §
There are traditions among the tribes living scattered about beyond
the Jordan, as there are many such also among the descendants of the
Samaritans at Damascus, Gaza, and at Naplosa (the ancient Shechera).
Many of these tribes have, notwithstanding the persecutions of eighteen
centuries, retained the faith of their fathers in its primitive simplicity.
It is there that we have to go for traditions based on historical truths,
however disfigured by exaggeration and inaccuracy, and compare them
with the religious legends of the Fathers, which they call revelation. Euse-
bius states that before the siege of Jerusalem the small Christian commu-
nity— comprising members of whom many, if not all, knew Jesus and his
apostles personally — took refuge in the little town of Pella, on the oppo-
site shore of the Jordan. Surely these simple people, separated for centu-
ries from the rest of the world, ought to have preserved their traditions
fresher than any other nations ! It is in Palestine that we have to search
for the clearest waters of Christianity, let alone its source. The first
Christians, after the death of Jesus, all joined together for a time, whether
Cerinthus within, rushed forth from the bath-house . . . crying out, ' Let us fly, lest
the bath-house fall down, Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, being within it ' " (Irenzeus :
"Adv. Hoer. ," iii., 3, § 4).
* Munk : " Palestine," p. 525 ; " Sod, the Son of the Man."
f " Haxthausen," p. 229.
% " Shahrastani ; " Dr. D. Chwolsohn : " Die Ssabier undder Ssabismus," ii. , p. 625.
§ Maimonides, quoted in Dr. D. Chwolsohn: "Die Ssabier mid der Ssabismus,"
ii-> p. 458.
198 ISIS UNVEILED.
they were Ebionites, Nazarenes, Gnostics, or others. They had no Chris-
tian dogmas in those days, and their Christianity consisted in believing
Jesus to be a prophet, this behef varying from seeing in him simply a
"just man," * or a holy, inspired prophet, a vehicle used by Christos and
Sophia to manifest themselves through. These all united together in
opposition to the synagogue and the tyrannical technicalities of the Phar-
isees, until the primitive group separated in two distinct branches — -which,
we may correctly term the Christian kabalists of the Jewish Tanaim school,
and the Christian kabalists of the Platonic Gnosis, f The former were
represented by the party composed of the followers of Peter, and John, the
author of the Apocalypse ; the latter ranged with the Pauline Christianity,
blending itself, at the end of the second century, with the Platonic phil-
osophy, and engulfing, still later, the Gnostic sects, whose symbols and
misunderstood mysticism overflowed the Church of Rome.
Amid this jumble of contradictions, what Christian is secure in confess-
ing himself such? In the old Syriac Gospel according to Luke (iii. 22),
the Holy Spirit is said to have descended in the likeness of a dove.
" Jesua, full of the sacred Spirit, returned from Jordan, and the Spirit led
him into the desert " (old Syriac, Luke iv. i, Tremellius). " The diffi-
culty," says Dunlap, "was that the Gospels declared that John the Bap-
tist saw the Spirit (the Power of God) descend upon Jesus after he had
reached manhood, and if the Spirit then first descended upon him, there
was some ground for the opinion of the Ebionites and Nazarenes who
denied his preceding existence, and refused him the attributes of the
Logos. The Gnostics, on the other hand, objected to the flesh, but con-
ceded the Logos." \
John's Apocalypsis, and the explanations of sincere Christian bish-
ops, Hke Synesius, who, to the last, adhered to the Platonic doctrines,
make us think that the wisest and safest way is to hold to that sincere
primitive faith which seems to have actuated the above-named bishop.
This best, sincerest, and most unfortunate of Christians, addressing the
" Unknown," exclaims : "Oh Father of the Worlds . . . Father of the
^ons . . . Artificer of the Gods, it is holy to praise I" But Synesius
had Hypatia for instructor, and this is why we find him confessing in all
sincerity his opinions and profession of faith. " The rabble desires
* " Ye have condemned and killed the just," says James in his epistle to the twelve
tribes.
f Porphyry makes a distinction between what ho calls "the Antique O"! Oriental
philosophy " and the properly Grecian system, that of the Neo-platonists. King says
that all these religions and systems are branches of one antique and common religion,
the Asiatic or Buddhistic (" Gnostics and their Remains," p. l).
X " Sod, the Son of the Man."
REAL MEANING OF HEROD'S "INFANT-MASSACRE." 1 99
nothing better than to be deceived. ... As regards myself, therefore,
I will always be a philosopher with myself, but I must be priest with the
people."
" Holy is God the Father of all being, holy is God, whose wisdom is
carried out into execution by his own Powers ! . . . Holy art Thou, who
through the Word had created all ! Therefore, I believe in Thee, and
bear testimony, and go into the life and light." * Thus speaks
Hermes Trismegistus, the heathen divine. What Christian bishop
could have said better than that ?
The apparent discrepancy of the four gospels as a whole, does not
prevent every narrative given in the New Testament — however much dis-
figured— having a ground-work of truth. To this, are cunningly adapted
details made to fit the later exigencies of the Church. So, propped up
partially by indirect evidence, still more by blind faith, they have become,
with time, articles of faith. Even the fictitious massacre of the " Inno-
cents " by King Herod has a certain foundation to it, in its allegorical
sense. Apart from the now-discovered fact that the whole story of such
a massacre of the Innocents is bodily taken from the Hindu Bagaved-
gitta, and Brahmanical traditions, the legend refers, moreover, allegori-
cally, to an historical fact. King Herod is the type of Kansa, the tyrant
of Madura, the maternal uncle of Christna, to whom astrologers pre-
dicted that a son of his niece Devaki would deprive him of his throne.
Therefore he gives orders to kill the male child that is born to her ; but
Christna escapes his fury through the protection of Mahadeva (the great
God) who causes the child to be carried away to another city, out of
Kansa's reach. After that, in order to be sure and kill the right boy, on
whom he failed to lay his murderous hands, Kansa has all the male new-
born infants within his kingdom killed. Christna is also worshipped by
the gopas (the shepherds) of the land.
Though this ancient Indian legend bears a very suspicious resem-
blance to the more modern biblical romance, Gaffarel and others attribute
the origin of the latter to the persecutions during the Herodian reign of
the kabalists and the Wise me?i, who had not remained strictly orthodox.
The latter, as well as the prophets, were nicknamed the " Innocents," and
the " Babes," on account of their holiness. As in the case of certain
degrees of modern Masonry, the adepts reckoned their grade of initia-
tion by a symbolic age. Thus Saul who, when chosen king, was "a
choice and goodly man," and " from his shoulders upward was higher
than any of the people," is described in Catholic versions, as "child
oi one year when he began to reign," which, in its literal sense, is a palpa-
* "Hermes Trismegistus," pp. S6, 87, 90.
200 ISIS UNVEILED.
ble absurdity. But in i Samuel yi., his anointing by Samuel and initia-
tion are described ; and at verse 6th, Samuel uses this significant lan-
guage : "... the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee and thou
shalt prophesy with them, and shall be turned into another man." The
phrase above quoted is thus made plain — he had received one
degree of initiation and was symbolically described as " a child one
year old." The Catholic Bible, from which the text is quoted, with
charming candor says in a foot-note: "It is extremely difficult to
explain " (meaning that Saul was a child of one year). But un-
daunted by any 'difficulty the Editor, nevertheless, does take upon him-
self to explain it, and adds : "A child of one year. That is, he was
good and like an innocent child." An interpretation as ingenious as it
is pious ; and which if it does no good can certainly do no harm. *
If the explanation of the kabalists is rejected, then the whole sub-
ject falls into confusion ; worse still — for it becomes a direct plagiarism
from the Hindu legend. All the commentators have agreed that a lit-
teral massacre of young children is nowhere mentioned in history ; and
that, moreover, an occurrence hke that would have made such a bloody
page in Roman annals that the record of it would have been preserved for us
by every author of the day. Herod himself was subject to the Roman
law ; and undoubtedly he would have paid the penalty of such a mon-
strous crime, with his own life. But if, on the one hand, we have not
the slightest trace of this fable in history, on the other, we find in the
* It is the correct interpretation of the Bible allegories that makes the Catholic
clergy so wrathful with the Protestants who freely scrutinize the Bible. How
bitter this feeling has become, we can judge by the following words of the Reverend
Father Parker of Hyde Park, New York, who, lecturing in St. Teresa's CathoUc
Church, on the loth of December, 1S76, said: "To whom does the Protestant
Church owe its possession of the Bible, which they wish to place in the hands of every
ignorant person and child? To monkish hands, that laboriously transcribed it before
the age of printing. Protestantism has produced dissension in Church, rebellions and
outbreaks in State, unsoundness in social life, and will never be satisfied short of the
downfall of the Bible ! Protestants must admit that the Roman Church has done
more to scatter Christianity and extirpate idolatry than all their sects. From one pul-
pit it is said that there is no hell, and from another that there is immediate and unmit-
igated damnation. One says that Jesus Christ was only a man ; another that you
must be plunged bodily into water to be baptized, and refuses the rites to infants.
Most of them have no prescribed form of worship, no sacred vestments, and their
doctrines are as undefined as their service is informal. The founder of Protestantism,
Martin Luther, was the worst man in Europe. The advent of the Reformation was
the signal for civil war, and from that time to this the world has been in a restless
state, uneasy in regard to Governments, and every day becoming more skeptical. The
ultimate tendency of Protestantism is clearly nothing less than the destruction of all
respect for the Bible, and the disruption of government and society." Very plain talk
this. The Protestants might easily return the compliment.
THE HEBREW TRADITIONS ABOUT JESUS. 20I
official complaints of the Synagogue abundant evidence of the persecu-
tion of the initiates. The Talmud also corroboraites it.
The Jewish version of the birth of Jesus is recorded in the Sepher-
Toldos Jeshu in the following words : .
" Mary having become the mother of a Son, named Jehosuah, and
the boy growing up, she entrusted him to the care of the Rabbi Elhanan,
and the child progressed in knowledge, for he was well gifted with spirit
and understanding.
"Rabbi Jehosuah, son ofPerachiah, continued the education of Jeho-
suah (Jesus) after Elhanan, and initiated him in the secret knowledge ; "
but the King, Janneus, having given orders to slay all the initiates, Jeho
suah Ben Perachiah, fled to Alexandria, in Egypt, taking the boy with him.
While in Alexandria, continues the story, they were received in the
house of a rich and learned lady (personified Egypt). Young Jesus
found her beautiful, notwithstanding " a defect in her eyes,'' and declared
so to his master. Upon hearing this, the latter became so angry that his
pupil should find in the land of bondage anything good, that " he cursed
him and drove the young man from his presence." Then follow a series
of adventures told in allegorical language, which show that Jesus supple-
mented his initiation in the Jewish Kabala with an additional acquisition
of the secret wisdom of Egypt. When the persecution ceased, they
both returned to Judea. *
The real grievances against Jesus are stated by the learned author
of Tela Ignea SatancB (the fiery darts of Satan) to be two in number :
ist, that he had discovered the great Mysteries of their Temple, by
having been initiated in Egypt ; and 2d, that he had profaned them by
exposing them to the vulgar, who misunderstood and disfigured them.
.This is what they say : f
" There exists, in the sanctuary of the living God, a cubical stone, on
which are sculptured the holy characters, the combination of which gives
the explanation of the attributes and powers of the incommunicable
name. This explanation is the secret key of all the occult sciences and
forces in nature. It is what the Hebrews call the Schani hainphorash.
This stone is watched by two lions of gold, who roar as soon as it is
approached. I The gates of the temple were never lost sight of, and the
* Eliphas Levi ascribes this narrative to the Talmudist authors of " Sota " and
''Sanhedrin," p. ig, book of "Jenhiel."
f This fragment is translated from the original Hebrew by Eliphas Levi in his " La
Science des Esprits."
X Those who know anything of the rites of the Hebrews must recognize in these
lions the gigantic figures of the Cherubim, whose symbolical monstrosity was well cal-,
culated to frighten and put to flight the profane.
202 ISIS UNVEILED.
door of the sanctuary opened but once a year, to admit the High Pnest
alone. But Jesus, who had learned in Egypt the 'great secrets' at the
initiation, forged for himself invisible keys, and thus was enabled to pen-
etrate into the sanctuary unseen. ... He copied the characters on the
cubical stone, and hid them in his thigh ; * after which, emerging from
the temple, he went abroad and began astounding people with his mira-
cles. The dead were raised at his command, the leprous and the obsessed
were healed. He forced the stones which lay buried for ages at the bot-
tom of the sea to rise to the surface until they formed a mountain, from
the top of which he preached." The Sepher Toldos states further that,
unable to displace the cubical stone of the sanctuary, Jesus fabricated one
of clay, which he showed to the nations and passed it off for the true
cubical stone of Israel.
This allegory, like the rest of them in such books, is written " inside
and outside" — it has its secret meaning, and ought to be read two ways.
The kabalistic books explain its mystical meaning. Further, the same
Talmudist says, in substance, the following : Jesus was thrown in prison, f
and kept there forty days ; then flogged as a seditious rebel ; then stoned
as a blasphemer in a place called Lud, and finally allowed to expire upon
a cross. "All this," explains Levi, "because he revealed to the people
the truths which they (the Pharisees) wished to bury for their own use.
He had divined the occult theology of Israel, had compared it with the
wisdom of Egypt, and found thereby the reason for a universal religious
synthesis." \
However cautious one ought to be in accepting anything about Jesus
from Jewish sources, it must be confessed that in some things they seem
to be more correct in their statements (whenever their direct interest in
stating facts is not concerned) than our good but too jealous Fathers.
One thing is certain, James, the " Brother of the Lord," is silent about
the resun-ection. He terms Jesus nowhere "Son of God," nor even
Christ-God. Once only, speaking of Jesus, he calls him the " Lord of
Glory," but so do the Nazarenes when writing about their prophet /(7/i(7«a«
bar Zacharia, or John, son of Zacharias (St. John Baptist). Their favo-
rite expressions about their prophet are the same as those used by James
when speaking of Jesus. A man " of the seed of a man," " Messenger of
Life," of light, "my Lord Apostle," "King sprung of Light," and so on.
,"FIave not the faith of our Z^/v/ Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory" etc.,
* Ai"nobius tells the same story of Jesus, and narrates how he was accused of having
robbed the sanctuary of the secret names of the Holy One, by means of which knowledge
he performed all the miracles.
f This is a translation of Eliphas Levi. % " La Science des Esprits," p. 37,
WHAT JESUS' BROTHER SAYS OF HIM. 203
says James in his epistle (ii. i), presumably addressing CJirist as God.
" Peace to thee, my Lord, John Abo Sabo, Lord of Glory ! " says the
Codex Nazaraus (ii., ig), known to address but a prophet. "Ye have
condemned and killed the Just" says James (v. 6). " lohanan (John) is
the Just one, he comes in the way oi justice" says Matthew (xxi. 32,
Syriac text).
James does not even call Jesus Messiah, in the sense given to the
title by the Christians, but alludes to the kabalistic "King Messiah,"
who is Lord of Sabaoth * (v. 4), and repeats several times that the
" Lord " will come, but identifies the latter nowhere with Jesus. "Be
patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord ... be
patient, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh " (v. 7, 8). And he
adds: "Take, my brethren, the prophet (Jesus) who has spoken in the
7iame of the Lord for an example of suffering, affliction, and of patience."
Though in the present version the word " prophet " stands in the plural,
yet this is a deliberate falsification of the original, the purpose of which
is too evident. James, immediately after having cited the " prophets " as
an example, adds : " Behold ... ye have heard of the patience of Job,
3.ndL have seen the end of the Lord" — thus combining the examples of
these two admirable characters, and placing them on a perfect equality.
But we have more to adduce in support of our argument. Did not Jesus
himself glorify the prophet of the Jordan? "What went ye out for to
see ? A prophet ? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. . . .
Verily, I say unto you, among them that are born of -women there hath
not risen a greater than John the Baptist."
And of whom was he who spoke thus born ? It is but the Roman
Catholics who have changed Mary, the mother of Jesus, into a goddess.
In the eyes of all other Christians she was a woman, whether his own
birth was immaculate or otherwise. According to strict logic, then, Jesus
confessed John greater than himself. Note how completely this matter
is disposed of by the language employed by the Angel Gabriel when
addressing Mary : " Blessed art thou among women." These words are
unequivocal. He does not adore her as the Mother of God, nor does he
call her goddess ; he does not even address her as "Virgin," but he calls
her woman, and only distinguishes her above other women as having had
better fortune, through her purity.
The Nazarenes were known as Baptists, Sabians, and John's Chris-
tians. Their behef was that the Messiah was not the Son of God, but sim-
ply a prophet who would follow John. "Johanan, the Son of the Abo
Sabo Zachariah, shall say to himself, ' Whoever will believe in my justice
* " Israelite Indeed," vol. iii., p. 61.
204 ISIS UNVEILED.
and ray Baptism shall be joined to my association ; he shall share with
nie the seat which is the abode of life, of the supreme Mano, and of living
fire" {Codex NazarcEus, ii., p. 115). Origan remarks " there are some who
said of John (the Baptist) that he was the anointed (Christus). * The
Angel Rasiel of the kabalists is the Angel Gabriel of the Nazarenes, and
it is the latter who is chosen of all the celestial hierarchy by the Chris-
tians to become the messenger of the ' annunciation.' The genius sent
by the 'Lord of Celsitude' is ^Ebel Zivo, whose name is also called
Gabriel Legatus." f Paul must have had the sect of the Nazarenes in
mind when he said : " And last of all he (Jesus) was seen of me also, as
of one born out of due time" (i Coritith., xv. 8), thus reminding his listen-
ers of the expression usual to the Nazarenes, who termed the Jews " the
abortions, or born out of time." Paul prides himself of belonging to a
hseresy.J;
When the metaphysical conceptions of the Gnostics, who saw in Jesus
the Logos and the anointed, began to gain ground, the earliest Christians
separated from the Nazarenes, who accused Jesus of perverting the doc-
trines of John, and changing the baptism of the Jordan. § "Directly,"
says Milman, " as it (the Gospel) got beyond the borders of Palestine,
and the name of 'Christ' had acquired sanctity and veneration in the
Eastern cities, he became a kind of metaphysical itnpersonation, while the
religion lost its purely moral cast and assumed the character of a specula-
tive theogony." || The only half-original document that has reached us
from the primitive apostolic days, is the Logia of Matthew. The real,
genuine doctrine has remained in the hands of the Nazarenes, in this
Gospel 0/ Afatthew zontaXmng the "Secret doctrine," the "Sayings of
Jesus," mentioned by Papias. These sayings were, no doubt, of the same
nature as the small manuscripts jilaced in the hands of the neophytes,
who were candidates for the Initiations into the Mysteries, and which
contained the Aporrheta, the revelations of some important rites and
symbols. For why should Matthew take such precautions to make them
"secret" were it otherwise ?
Primitive Christianity had its grip, pass-words, and degrees of initia-
tion. The innumerable Gnostic gems and amulets are weighty proofs of
it. It is a whole symbolical science. The kabalists were the first to
embellish the universal Logos,^ with such terms as " Light of Light," the
* "Origen," vol. ii., p. 150. \ "Codex Nazarseus," vol. i., p. 23.
X " In the way these call heresy I worship" (Acts xxiv. 14).
§ "Codex Nazaraeus," vol. ii., p. 109. J "Milman," p. 200.
T[ Dunlap says in " Sod, the Son of the Man : " " Mr Hall, of India, informs us
that he has seen Sanscrit philosophical treatises in which the Logos continually occur,"
p. 39, foot-note.
VAST ANTIQUITY OF BORROWED CHRISTIAN TERMS. 20$
Messenger of Life and Light, * and we find these expressions adopted
in toto by the Christians, with the addition of nearly all the ,Gnostic terms
such as Pleroma (fulness), Archons, ^-Eons, etc. As to the "First-Born,"
the First, and the '-Only-Begotten," these are as old as the world.
Origen shows the word ''Logos" as existing among the Brachmanes.
"The Brachinaiics say that the God is Light, not such as one sees, nor
such as the sun and fire ; but they have the God Logos, not the articu-
late, the Logos of the Gnosis, through whom the highest mysteries of
the Gnosis are seen by the wise." f The Acts and the fourth Gospel
teem with Gnostic expressions. The kabalistic : " God's first-born
emanated from the AEost High," together with that which is the " Spirit
of the Anointing ;" and again " they called him the anointed of die
Highest," \ are reproduced in Spirit and substance by the author of the
Gospel according to John. "That was the true light," and " the light
shineth in darkness." " And the word was rnade flesh." " And his
fulness (pleroma) have all we received," etc. {John i. et seq.).
The " Christ," then, and the " Logos" existed ages before Christian-
ity ; the Oriental Gnosis was studied long before the days of Moses, and
we have to seek for the origin of all these in the archaic periods of the
primeval Asiatic philosophy. Peter's second Epistle and Jude's fragment,
preserved in the New Testament, show by their phraseology that they
belong to the kabalistic Oriental Gnosis, for they use the same expres-
sions as did the Christian Gnostics who built a part of their system from
the Oriental Kahala. " Presumptuous are they (the Ophites), self-willed,
they are not afraid to speak evil of Dignities," says Peter (2d Epistle
ii. 10), the original model for the later abusive Tertullian and Irensus. §
" Likewise (even as Sodom and Gomorrah) also these filthy dreamers
defile the flesh, despise Dominion" and speak evil of Dignities," says
Jude, repeating the very words of Peter, and thereby expressions con-
secrated in the Kahala. Dominion is the " Empire," the tenth of the
kabalistic sephiroth.|| The Powers and Dignities are the subordinate
* See John i. f Origen : " Philosophumena," xxiv.
\ Kleuker : " Natur und Ursprung der Emanationslehre bei den Kabbalisten," pp.
10, II ; see " Libri Slysterii."
§ " These as natural brtite beasts." " The dog has turned to its own vomit again ;
and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire " (22).
I The types of the creation, or the attributes of the Supreme Being, are through the
emanations of Adam Kadmou ; these are : ''The Crawn^ IVisdovi, Prudence, Magni-
ficence, Severity, Beauty, Victory, Glory, Foundation, Empire. Wisdom is called
yeh; Prudence, jfehovah ; Severity, Elokim ; Magnificence, El; Victory and Glory,
S.\BA.OTH ; Empire or Dominion, Adomai. " Thus when the Nazarenes and other
Gnostics of the more Platonic tendency twitted the Jews as "abortions who worship
2o6 ISIS UNVEILED.
genii of the Archangels and Angels of the SoJiar. * These emana-
tions are the very life and soul of the Kabala and Zoroastranism ; and
the Talmud itself, in its present state, is all borrowed from the Zend-
avesta. Therefore, by adopting the views of Peter, Jude, and other Jew-
ish apostles, the Christians have become but a dissenting sect of the Per-
sians, for they do not even interpret the meaning of all such Powers as
the true kabalists do. Paul's warning his converts against the worship-
ping of angels, shows how well he appreciated, even so early as his period,
the dangers of borrowing from a metaphysical doctrine the philosophy of
which could be rightly interpreted but by its well-learned adherents, the
Magi and the Jewish Tanai'm. " Let no man beguile you of your reward
iu a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those
things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind," f is
a sentence laid right at the door of Peter and his champions. In the
Talmud, Michael is Prince of Water, who has seven inferior spirits sub-
ordinate to him. He is the patron, the guardian angel of the Jews, as
Daniel informs us (v. 21), and the Greek Ophites, who identified him with
their Ophiomorphos, the personified creation of the envy and mahce of
Ilda-Baoth, the Demiurgus (Creator of the material world), and under-
took to prove that he was also Samuel, the Hebrew prince of the evil
sjiirits, or Persian devs, were naturally regarded by the Jews as blas-
phemers. But did Jesus ever sanction this belief in angels except in so
far as hinting that they were the messengers and subordinates of God ?
And here the origin of the later splits between Christian beliefs is directly
traceable to these two early contradictory views.
Paul, believing in all such occult powers in the world " unseen," but
ever " present," says : "Ye walked according to the ^on of this world,
according to the Archon (Ilda-Baoth, the Demiurg) that has the domina-
tion of the air," and " We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against the dominations, the po7uers ; the lords of darkness, the mischiev-
ousness of spirits in the upper regions." This sentence, " Ye were dead
in sin and error," for " ye walked according to the Archon," or Ilda-
Baoth, the God and creator of matter of the Ophites, shows unequivocally
that : ist, Paul, notwithstanding some dissensions with the more important
doctrines of the Gnostics, shared more or less their cosmogonical views
on the emanations ; and 2d, that he was fully aware that this Demiurge,
their god Turbo, Adiinai,'''' we need not wonder at the wrath of those who had ac-
cepted the old Mosaic system, but at that of Peter and Jude who claim to be followers
of Jesus and dissent from the views of him who was also a Nazarene.
* According to the " Kabala," Empire or Dominion is " the consuming fire, and
his wife is the Temple or the Church."
\ Colossians ii. 18.
"DIGNITIES.," "POWERS," "DOMINIONS," ETC., EXPLAINED. 20/
whose Jewish name was Jehovah, was not the God preached by Jesus.
And now, if we compare the doctrine of Paul with the religious views of
Peter and Jude, we find that, not only did they worship Michael, the
Archangel, but that also they reverenced Satan, because the latter was
also, before his fall, an angel ! This they do quite openly, and abuse the
Gnostics* for speaking " evil" of him. No one can deny the following:
Peter, when denouncing those who are not afraid to speak evil of ''dig-
nities^' adds immediately, " Whereas angels, which are greater in power
and might, bring Jiot railing accusations against them (the dignities)
before the Lord" (ii. ii). Who are the dignities? Jude, in his general
epistle, makes the word as clear as day. The dignities are the devils ! !
Complaining of the disrespect shown by the Gnostics to the -powers and
dominions, Jude argues in the very words of Peter : " And yet, Michael,
the Archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the
body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said.
The Lord rebuke thee " (i. 9). Is this plain enough ? If not, then we
have the Kabala to prove who were the dignities.
Considering that Deuteronomy tells us that the " Lord " Himself
buried Moses in a valley of Moab (xxxiv. 6), " and no man knoweth of
his sepulchre unto this day," this biblical lapsus lingtca of Jude gives a
strong coloring to the assertions of some of the Gnostics. They claimed
but what was secretly taught by the Jewish kabalists themselves ; to
wit : that the highest supreme God was unknown and invisible ; " the
King of Light is a closed eye ; " that Ilda-Baoth, the Jewish second Adam,
was the real Demiurge ; and that lao, Adonai, Sabaoth, and Eloi were
the quaternary emanation which formed the unity of the God of the He-
brews— Jehovah. Moreover, the latter was also called Michael and
Samael by them, and regarded but as an angel, several removes from the
Godhead. In holding to such a belief, the Gnostics countenanced the
teachings of the greatest of the Jewish doctors, Hillel, and other Babylo-
nian divines. Josephus shows the great deference of the official Synagogue
in Jerusalem to the wisdom of the schools of Central Asia. The colleges
of Sora, Pumbiditha, and Nahaidea were considered the headquarters of
esoteric and theological learning by all the schools of Palestine. The
Chaldean version of the Pentateuch, made by the well-known Babylonian
divine, Onkelos, was regarded as the most authoritative of all ; and it is
according to this learned Rabbi that Hillel and other Tanaim after him
held that the Being who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, on
Mount Sinai, and who finally buried him, was the angel of the Lord,
* It is more likely that both abused Paul, who preached against this belief; and
that the Gnostics were only a pretext. (See Peter's second Epistle.)
208 ISIS UNVEILED.
Memro, and not the Lord Himself ; and that he whom the Hebrews of the
Old Testament mistook for lahoh was but His messenger, one of His sons,
or emanations. All this establishes but one logical conclusion — namely,
that the Gnostics were by far the superiors of the disciples, in point of
education and general information ; even in a knowledge of the religious
tenets of the Jews themselves. While they were perfectly well-versed in
the Chaldean wisdom, the well-meaning, pious, but fanatical as well as
ignorant disciples, unable to fully understand or grasp the religious spirit
of their own system, were driven in their disputations to such convincing
logic as the use of " brute beasts," " sows," " dogs," and other epithets
so freely bestowed by Peter.
Since then, the epidemic has reached the apex of the sacerdotal hier-
archy. From the day when the founder of Christianity uttered the warn-
ing, that he who shall say to his brother, " Thou fool, shall be in danger
ofliell-fire," all who have passed as its leaders, beginning with the ragged
fishermen of Galilee, and ending with the jewelled pontiffs, have seemed
to vie with each other in the invention of opprobrious epithets for their
opponents. So we find Luther passing a final sentence on the Catholics,
and exclaiming that " The Papists are all asses, put them in whatever
form you like ; whether they are boiled, roasted, baked, fried, skinned,
hashed, they will be always the same asses." Calvin called the victims
he persecuted, and occasionally burned, "malicious barking dogs, full of
bestiality and insolence, base corrupters of the sacred writings," etc.
Dr. Warburton terms the Popish religion " an impious farce," and JMon-
seigneur Dupanloup asserts that the Protestant Sabbath service is the
"Devil's mass," and all clergymen are "thieves and ministers of the
Devil."
The same spirit of incomplete inquiry and ignorance has led the
Christian Church to bestow on its most holy apostles, titles assumed by
their most desperate opponents, the " Hasretics " and Gnostics. So we
find, for instance, Paul termed the vase of election " Vas Electio?iis" a
title chosen by Manes, * the greatest heretic of his day in the eyes of the
Church, Manes meaning, in the Babylonian language, the chosen vessel
or receptacle, f
So with the Virgin Mary. They were so little gifted with originality,
that they copied from the Egyptian and Hindu religions their several
* The true name of Manes — who was a Persian by birth — was Cubricus. (See
Epiph. "Life of Manes," Ha;ret. Ixv.) He was flayed alive at the instance of the
Magi, by the Persian King Varanes I. Plutarch says that Manes or Manis means
Masses or anointed. The vessel, or vase of election, is, therefore, the vessel full of
that light of God, which he pours on one he has selected for his interpreter.
\ See King's " Gnostics," p. 38.
APOSTROPHES TO THREE, VIRGIN-MOTHERS COMPARED. 209
apostrophes to their respective Virgin-mothers,
few examples will make this clear.
Hindu.
Litany of our Lady Nari :
Virgin.
{Also Devanaki.)
1. Holy Nari — Mariama,
Mother of perpetual fe-
cundity.
2. Mother of an incarnated
God — Vishnu (Devan-
aki).
3. Mother of Christna.
4. Eternal Virginity — Kan-
yabava.
5. Mother — Pure Essence,
Akasa.
6. Virgin most chaste —
Kanya.
7. Mother Taumatra, of
the five virtues or ele-
ments.
8. Virgin Trigana (of the
three elements, power
or richness, love, and
mercy).
9. Mirror of Supreme Con-
science— Ahancara.
10. Wise Mother — Saras-
wati.
11. Virgin of the white
Lotos, Pedma or Kam-
ala.
12. Womb of Gold — Hy-
rania.
13. Celestial Light — Lak-
shmi.
14. Ditto.
15. Queen of Heaven, and
of the universe — Sakti.
16. Mother soul of all
beings — Paramatma.
17. Devanaki is conceived
without sin, and immacu-
late herself. (According
to the Brahmanic fancy. )
14
Egyptian.
Litany of our Lady Lsis :
Virgin.
I. Holy lsis, universal
mother — Muth.
2. Mother of
Athyr.
Gods-
The juxtaposition of a
Roman Catholic.
Litany of our La^y of
Loretto : Virgin. *
1. Holy Mary, mother of
divine grace.
2. Mother of God.
3. Mother of Horus.
4. Virgo generatrix —
Neith.
5. Mother-soul of the uni-
verse— Anouke.
6. Virgin sacred earth —
lsis.
7. Mother of all the vir-
tues— Thmei, with the
same qualities.
8. Illustrious lsis, most
powerful, merciful, just.
{Book of the Dead.)
g. Mirror of Justice and
Truth — Thmei.
10. Mysterious mother of
the world — Buto (secret
wisdom).
11. Sacred Lotos.
12. Sistrum of Gold.
13. Astarte (Syrian), As-
taroth (Jewish).
14. Argua of the Moon.
15. Queen of Heaven, and
of the universe — Sati.
16. Model of all mothers
— Athor.
17. lsis is a Virgin Mother.
3. Mother of Christ.
4. Virgin of Virgms.
5. Mother of Divine Grace.
6. Virgin most chaste.
7. Mother most pure.
Mother undefiled.
Mother inviolate.
Mother most amiable.
Mother most admirable.
8. Virgin most powerful.
Virgin most merciful.
Virgin most faithful.
9. Mirror of Justice.
10. Seat of Wisdom.
11. Mystical Rose.
12. House of Gold.
13. Morning Star.
14. Ark of the Covenant.
15. Queen of Heaven.
16. Mater Dolorosa.
17. Mary conceived with-
out sin. (In accordance
with later orders.)
2IO ISIS UNVEILED.
If the Virgin Mary has her nuns, who are consecrated to her and
bound to live in chastity, so had Isis her nuns in Egypt, as Vesta had
hers at Rome, and the Hindu Nari, " mother of the world hers." The
virgins consecrated to her cultus — the Devadasi of the temples, whu
were"^the nuns of the days of old — lived in great chastity, and were
objects of the most extraordinary veneration, as the holy women of the
goddess. Would the missionaries and some travellers reproachfully point
to the modern Devadasis, or Nautch-girls ? For all response, we would
beg them to consult the official reports of the last quarter century, cited
in chapter II., as to certain discoveries made at the razing of convents,
in Austria and Italy. Thousands of infants' skulls were exhumed from
ponds, subterranean vaults, and gardens of convents. Nothing to match
this was ever found in heathen lands.
Christian theology, getting the doctrine of the archangels and angels
directly from the Oriental Kabala, of which the Mosaic Bible is but an
allegorical screen, ought at least to remember the hierarchy invented by
the former for these personified emanations. The hosts of the Cherubim
and Seraphim, with which we generally see the Catholic Madonnas sur-
rounded in their pictures, belong, together with the Elohira and Beni
Elohim of the Hebrews, to the third kabalistic world, Jezirah. This
world is but one remove higher than Asiah. the fourth and lowest world,
in which dwell the grossest and most material beings — the klippoih, who
delight in evil and mischief, and whose chief is Belial !
Explaining, in his way, of course, the various " heresies " of the first
two centuries, Irenseus says : " Our Haeretics hold . . . that Propator
is known but to the only-begotten son, that is to the mind" (the nous).
It was the Valentinians, the followers of the " profoundest doctor of the
Gnosis," Valentinus, who held that "there was a perfect Ai6n, who
existed before Bythos, or Buthon (the Depth), called Propator. This is
again kabalistic, for in the Sohar of Simon Ben lochai, we read the fol-
lowing : " Senior occiiltatus est et absco?iditus ; Microprosopus manifestus
est, ei non manifestus" (Rosenroth : The Sohar Liber Mysteries, \v., \).
In the rehgious metaphysics of the Hebrews, fhe Highest One is an
abstraction ; he is "without form or being," "with no likeness with any-
thing else." * And even Philo calls the Creator, the Logos who stands
next God, " the second God." "The second God who is his wisdom." \
God is NOTHING, he is nameless, and therefore called Ain-Soph — the word
Ain meaning nothing. \ But if, according to the older Jews, Jehovah is
the God, and He manifested Himself several times to Moses and the
* Franck: " Die Kabbala," p. 126. \ Philo : " Quaest. et Solut."
% See Franck : " Die Kabbala," p. 153 ff.
THE FOURTH GOSPEL NOT WRITTEN BY JOHN. 211
prophets, and the Christian Church anathematized the Gnostics who denied
the fact — how comes it, then, that we read in the fourth gospel that '■'■No
man hath seen God at any time, but the only-begotten Son ... he hath
declared him ? " The very words of the Gnostics, in spirit and substance.
This sentence of St. John — or rather whoever wrote the gospel now
bearing his name — floors all the Petrine arguments against Simon Magus,
without appeal. The words are repeated and emphasized in chapter vi. :
" Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he
(Jesus) hath seen the Father" (46) — the very objection brought forward
by Simon in the Homilies. These words prove that either the author of
the fourth evangel had no idea of the existence of the Homilies, or that
he was not John, the friend and companion of Peter, whom he contradicts
point-blank with this emphatic assertion. Be it as it may, this sentence,
hke many more that might be profitably cited, blends Christianity com-
pletely with the Oriental Gnosis, and hence with the kabala.
While the doctrines, ethical code, and observances of the Christian
religion were all appropriated from Brahmanism and Buddhism, its cere-
monials, vestments, and pageantry were taken bodily from Lamaism.
The Romish monastery and nunnery are almost servile copies of similar
religious houses in Thibet and Mongolia, and interested explorers of Budd-
hist lands, when obliged to mention the unwelcome fact, have had no
other alternative left them but, with an anachronism unsurpassed in reck-
lessness, to charge the offense of plagiarism upon the religious system
their own mother Church had despoiled. This makeshift has served its
purpose and had its day. The time has at last come when this page of
history must be written.
CHAPTER V.
*' Learn to know all, but keep thyself unknown." — Gnostic Maxim.
**There is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals,
Whose form is not like unto man's, and as unlike his nature ;
But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begatteii
With human sensations, and voice, and corporeal members."
— Xenophanes : Clem. Al. Strom. ^ v. 14, § no.
"TvcHlADES. — Can you tell me the reason, Philocles, why most men desire to lye, and delight not
only to speak fictions themselves, but give busie attention to others who do ?
" Philocles. — There be many reasons, Tychiades, which compell some to speak lyes, because they
see 'tis profitable." — A Dialogue 0/ Lucian.
" Spartan. — Is it to thee, or to God, that I must confess ?
" Priest.— To God.
" Spartan. — Then, man, stand back ! " — Plutarch : Retnarkahle Lacede»tonian Sayings,
WE will now give attention to some of the most important Mysteries
of the Kabala, and trace their relations to the philosophical
myths of various nations.
In the oldest Oriental Kabala, the Deity is represented as three cir-
cles in one, shrouded in a certain smoke or chaotic exhalation. In the
preface to the Sohar, which transforms the three primordial circles into
Three Heads, over these is described an exhalation or smoke, neither
black nor white, but colorless, and circumscribed within a circle. This
is the unknown Essence.* The origin of the Jewish image may, perhaps,
be traced to Hermes' Pimander, the Egyptian Logos, who appears within
a cloud of a humid nature, with a smoke escaping from it. f In the Sohar
the highest God is, as we have shown in the preceding chapter, and as
in the case of the Hindu and Buddhist philosophies, a pure abstraction,
whose objective existence is denied by the latter. It is Hakama, the
" Supreme Wisdom, that cannot be understood by reflection," and that
lies within and without the Cranium of Long Face \ (Sephira), the
uppermost of the three " Heads." It is the " boundless and the infinite
En-Soph," the No-Thing.
The " three Heads," superposed above each other, are evidently taken
from the three mystic triangles of the Hindus, which also superpose each
other. The highest " head " contains the Trinity in Chaos, out of which
springs the manifested trinity. En-Soph, the unrevealed forever, who is
* " Kabbala Denudata ; " preface to the " Sohar," ii., p. 242.
f See ChampoUion's " Egypte." % " Idra Rabba," vi., p. 58.
THE SUPREME ESSENCE NOT THE CREATOR. 213
boundless and unconditioned, cannot create, and therefore it seems to us
a great error to attribute to him a " creative thought," as is commonly
done by the interpreters. In every cosmogony this supreme Essence is
passive ; if boundless, infinite, and unconditioned, it can have no thought
nor idea. It acts not as the result of volition, but in obedience to its own
nature, and according to the fatality of the laiv of which it is itself the
embodiment . Thus, with the Hebrew kabalists, En-Soph is non-existent
I't!, for it is incomprehensible to our finite intellects, and therefore cannot
exist to our minds. Its first emanation was Sephira, the crown -ina. When
the time for an active period had come, then was produced a natural
expansion of this Divine essence from within outwardly, obedient to eter-
nal and immutable law ; and from this eternal and infinite light (which to
us is darkness) was emitted a spiritual substance.* This was the First
Sephiroth, containing in herself the other nine ni-i^£0 Sephiroth, or intel-
ligences. In their totality and unit_y they represent the archetypal
man, Adam Kadmon, the TrpwToyovos, who in his individuality or unity is
yet dual, or bisexual, the Greek Didumos, for he is the prototype of all
humanity. Thus we obtain three trinities, each contained in a "head."
In the first head, or face (the three-faced Hindu Trunurti), we find
Sephira, the first androgyne, at the apex of the upper triangle, emit-
ting Hackama, or Wisdom, a mascuhne and active potency — also called
Jah, IT'— — and Binah, n3''a, or Intelligence, a female and passive potency,
also represented by the name Jehovah mni. These three form the
first trinity or " face " of the Sephiroth. This triad emanated Hesed,
ion, or Mercy, a masculine active potency, also called El, from which
emanated Geburah t^i, or Justice, also called Eloha, a feminine passive
potency ; from the union of these two was produced Tiphereth n-Nsn,
Beauty, Clemency, the Spiritual Sun, known by the divine name Elohim ;
and the second triad, " face," or " head," was formed. These emanating,
in their turn, the masculine potency Netzah, n:s3, Firmness, or Jehovah
Sabaoth, who issued the feminine passive potency Hod, nin. Splendor,
or Elohim Sabaoth ; the two produced Jesod, ■no-'. Foundation, who is
the mighty living one El-Chai, thus yielding the third trinity or "head."
The tenth Sephiroth is rather a duad, and is represented on the diagrams
as the lowest circle. It is Malchuth or Kingdom, nisVxi, and Shekinah n5''a»,
also called Adonai, and Cherubim among the atigelic hosts. The first
" Head" is called the Intellectual world ; the second " Head " is the Sen-
suous, or the world of Perception , and the third is the Material or
Physical world.
" Before he gave any shape to the universe," says the Kabala, " before
* Ii3ra Suta : " Sohar," ii.
214 ISIS UNVEILED.
he produced any form, he was alone without any form and resemblance
to anything else. Who, then, can comprehend him, how he was before
the creation, since he was formless ? Hence, it is forbidden to represent
him by any form, simiHtude, or even by his sacred name, by a single
letter, or a single point. . . . The Aged of the Aged, the Unknown of
the Unknown, has a form, and yet no form. He has a form whereby the
universe is preserved, and yet has no form, because he cannot be com-
prehended. When he first assumed a form (in Sephira, his first emana-
tion), he caused nine splendid lights to emanate from it." *
And now we will turn to the Hindu esoteric Cosmogony and defini-
tion of " Him who is, and yet is not."
" From him who is, f from this immortal Principle which exists in our
minds but cannot be perceived by the senses, is born Purusha, the
Divine male and female, who became Narayana, or the Divine Spirit
moving on the water."
Swayambhuva, the unknown essence of the Brahmans, is identical with
En-Soph, the unknown essence of the kabalists. As with the latter, the
ineffable name could not be pronounced by the Hindus, under the pen-
alty of death. In the ancient primitive trinity of India, that which may
be certainly considered as pre-Vedic, the germ which fecundates the
mother-principle, the mundane egg, or the universal womb, is called Nara,
the Spirit, or the Holy Ghost, which emanates from the primordial essence.
It is like Sephira, the oldest emanation, called xhe primordial point, and the
Halite Head, for it is the point of divine light appearing from within the
fathomless and boundless darkness. In Mann it is " Nara, or the Spirit
of God, which moves on Ayana (Chaos, or place of motion), and is called
Narayana, or moving on the waters." \ In Hermes, the Egyptian, we
read : " In the beginning of the time there was naught in the chaos."
But when the " verbum," issuing from the void hke a "colorless smoke,"
makes its appearance, then " this verbum moved on the humid princi-
ple." § And in Genesis we find : " And darkness was upon the face
of the deep (chaos). And the Spirit of God movecl upon the face of the
waters." In the Kabala, the emanation of the primordial passive principle
(Sephira), by dividing itself into two parts, active and passive, emits
Chochma-Wisdom and Binah-Jehovah, and in conjunction with these two
acolytes, which complete the trinity, becomes the Creator of the abstract
Universe ; the physical world being the production of later and still
more material powers. || In the Hindu Cosmogony, Swayambhuva emits
* Idra Suta: "Sohar," iii. , p. 28S a. f Ego sum qui sum (see "Bible").
\ See *• Institutes of Manu," translated by Sir William Jones. § ChampoUion.
II We are fully aware that some Christian kabalists term En-Soph the "Crown,"
ALL WORLD-RELIGIONS FUNDAMENTALLY IDENTICAL. 2X5
Nara and Nari, its bisexual emanation, and dividing its parts into two
halves, male and female, these fecundate the mundane egg, within which
develops Brahma, or rather Viradj, the Creator. "The starting-point of
the Egyptian mythology," says Champollion, " is a triad . . . namely,
Kneph, Neith, and Phtah ; and Ammon, the male, the father ; iSfuth, the
female and mother ; and Khons, the son.
The ten Sephiroth are copies taken from the ten Prddjapatis created
by Viradj, called the " Lords of all beings," and answering to the bibli-
cal Patriarchs.
Justin Martyr explains some of the "heresies" of the day, but in a
very unsatisfactory manner. He shoivs, howcc'er, the identity of all the
world-religions at their starting-points. The first beginning opens inva-
riably with the unknown and passive deity, producing from himself a cer-
identify him with Sephira ; call En-Soph " an emanation from God," and make the ten
Sephiroth comprise "En Soph" as a unity. They also very erroneously reverse the
first two emanations of Sephira — Chochma and Binah. The {greatest kahalists have
always held Chochma (Wisdom) as a male and active intelligence, Jah p;-, and placed
it under the No. 2 on the right side of the triangle, whose apex is the crown, while
Binah (Intelligence) or ri:"':> 's under No. 3 on the left hand. But the latter, being
represented by its divine name as Jehovah rnn^> very naturally showed the God of
Israel as only a third emanation, as well as a feminine, passive principle. Hence when
the time came for the Talmudists to transform their multifarious deities into one living
God, they resorted to their Masoretic points and combined to transform Jehovah into
Adonai, " the Lord." This, under the persecution of the Mediaeval kabalists by the
Church, also forced some of the former to change their female Sephiioth into male, and
vice versa, so as to avoid being accused of di.srespect and blasphemy to Jehovah ;
whose name, moreover, by mutual and secret agreement they accepted as a substitute
for Jah, or the mystery name lAO. Alone the initiated knew of it, but later it gave
rise to a great confusion among the uninitiated. It would be worth while — were it not
for lack of space — to quote a few of the many passages in the oldest Jewish authorities,
such as Rabbi Akiba, and the "Sohar," which corroborate our assertion. Chochma-
Wisdom is a male prmciple everywhere, and Binah- Jehovah, a female potency. The
writings of Irenceus, Theodoret, and Epiphanius, teeming with accusations against the
Gnostics and •' Hgeresies," repeatedly show Simon Magus and Cerenthus making of
Binah the feminine divine Spirit which inspired Simon. Binah is Sophia, and the
Sophia of the Gnostics is surely not a male potency, but simply the feminine AVisdom,
or Intelligence. (See any ancient "Arbor Kabbalistica," or Tree of the Sephiroth.)
EliphasLevi, in the " Rituel dela Haute Magie," vol. i., pp. 223 and 231, places Choch-
ma as No. 2 and asamale Sephiroth on the right hand of the Tree. In the " Kabala"
the three male Sephiroth — Chochma, Chesed, Netsah — are known as the Pillar of Mercy ;
and the three feminine on the left, namely, Binah, Geburah, Hod, are named the Pillar
of Judgment ; while the four Sephiroth of the centre — Kether, Tiphereth, Jesod, and
Malchuth — are called the Middle Pillar. And, as Mackenzie, in the " Royal Masonic
Cyclopedia," shows, " there is an analogy in these three pillars to the three Pillars of
Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty in a Craft Lodge of Masonry, while the En-Soph forms
the mysterious blazing star, or mystic li^jht of the East " (p. 407).
2l6 ISIS UNVEILED.
tain active power or virtue, "Rational," which is sometimes called
Wisdom, sometimes the Son, very often God, Angel, Lord, and Logos.*
The latter is sometimes applied to the very first emanation, but m several
systems it proceeds from the first androgyne or double ray produced at
the beginning by the unseen. Philo depicts this wisdom as male and
female. But though its first manifestation had a beginning, for it pro-
ceeded from Oulom \ (Aion, time), the highest of the ^:ons, when emitted
from the Fathers, it had remained with him before all creations, for it is
part of him. I Therefore, Philo Judseus calls Adam Kadmon "■mind''
(the Ennoia of Bythos in the Gnostic system). " The mind, let it be
named Adam." §
Strictly speaking, it is difficult to view the Jewish Book of Genesis
otherwise than as a chip from the trunk of the mundane tree of universal
Gosmogony, rendered in Oriental allegories. As cycle succeeded cycle,
and one nation after another came upon the world's stage to play its brief
part in the majestic drama of human life, each new people evolved from
ancestral traditions its own religion, giving it a local color, and stamping
it with its individual characteristics. While each of these religions had
its distinguishing traits, by which, were there no other archaic vestiges,
the physical and psychological status of its creators could be estimated,
all preserved a common likeness to one prototype. This parent cult was
none other than the primitive "wisdom-religion." The Israelitish Scrip-
tures are no exception. Their national history — if they can claim any
autonomy before the return from Babylon, and were anything more than
migratory septs of Hindu pariahs, cannot be carried back a day beyond
Moses ; and if this ex-Egyptian priest must, from theological necessity, be
transformed into a Hebrew patriarch, we must insist that the Jewish nation
was lifted with that smiling infant out of the bulrushes of Lake Moeris.
Abraham, their alleged father, belongs to the universal mythology. Most
likely he is but one of the numerous aliases oi Zeruan (Saturn), the king
of the golden age, who is also called the old man (emblem of time). ||
It is now demonstrated by Assyriologists that in the old Chaldean
books Abraham is called Zeru-an, or Zerb-an — meaning one very rich in
gold and silver, and a mighty prince.^ He is also called Zarouan and
Zarman — a decrepit old man. **
*Justin : "Cum. Trypho," p. 284. -I- A division indicative of time.
\ Sanchoiiiat'iou calls time the oldest ^on, ProtogonoSy the *^ first-borny
§ Philo Jiidasus : " Cain and his Birth," p. xvii.
II Azrael, angel of death, is also Israel. Ab-ram means father of elevation, high'
placed father,- for Saturn is the highest or outmost planet.
1[ See (ienesis xiii. 2.
** Saturn is generally represented as a very old man, with a sickle in his hand.
THE BABYLONIAN LEGEND OF XISUTHRUS. 21/
The ancient Babylonian legend is that Xisuthriis (Hasisadra of the
Tablets, or Xisuthrus) sailed with his ark to Armenia, and his son Sim
became supreme king. Pliny says that Sim was called Zeruan ; and
Sim is Shem. In Hebrew, his name writes izv, Shem — a sign. Assyria
is held by the ethnologists to be the land of Shem, and Egypt called
that of Ham. Shem, in the tenth chapter of Ge?tesis is made the father
of all the children of Eber, of Elam (Oulam or Eilara), and Ashur (Assur
or Assyria). The " Jiephelim" or fallen men, Gebe?-s, mighty men spoken
of in Genesis (vi. 4), come from Oulam, "men of Shem." Even Ophir,
which is evidently to be sought for in the India of the days of Hiram, is
made a descendant of Shem. The records are purposely mixed up to
make them fit into the frame of the Mosaic Bible. But Gettesis, from its
first verse down to the last, has naught to do with the " chosen people ; "
it belongs to the world's history. Its appropriation by the Jewish authors
in the days of the so-called restoration of the destroyed books of the Is-
raelites, by Ezra, proves nothing, and, until now, has been self-propped
on an alleged divine revelation. It is simply a compilation of the uni-
versal legends of the universal humanity. Bunsen says that in the
"Chaldean tribe immediately connected with Abraham, we find remin-
iscences of dates disfigured and misunderstood, as genealogies of single
men, or indications of epochs. The Abrahamic recollections go back at
least three millenia beyond the grandfather of Jacob." *
Alexander Polyhistor says that Abraham was born at Kamarina or
Uria, a city of soothsayers, and invented astronomy. Josephus claims
the same for Terah, Abraham's father. The tower of Babel was built as
much by the direct descendants of Shem as by those of the " accursed "
Ham and Canaan, for the people in those days were " one," and the
"whole earth was of one language ; " and Babel was simply an astrologi-
cal tower, and its builders were astrologers and adepts of the primitive
Wisdom-Religion, or, again, what we term Secret Doctrine.
The Berosian Sybil says : Before the Tower, Zeruan, Titan, and
Vapetosthe governed the earth, Zeru-an wished to be supreme, but his
two brothers resisted, when their sister, Astlik, intervened and appeased
them. It was agreed that Zeru-an should rule, but his male children
should be put to death ; and strong Titans were appointed to carry this
into effect.
Sar (circle, saros) is the Babylonian god of the sky. He is also
Assaros or Asshur (the son of Shem), and Zero — Zero-ana, the chakkra,
or wheel, boundless time. Hence, as the first step taken by Zoroaster,
while founding his new religion, was to change the most sacred deities
* Bunsen : " Egypt's Place in Universal History," vol. v., p. 85,
2l8 ISIS UNVEILED.
of the Sanscrit Veda into names of evil spirits, in his Zend Scriptures,
and even to reject a number of them, we find no traces in the Avesta of
Chakkra — the symboHc circle of the sky.
Elam, another of the sons of Shem, is Oidam ttViy and refers to an
order or cycle of events. In Ecclesiastes iii. ii, it is termed "world."
In Ezekiel xxvi. 20, "of old time." In Genesis iii. 22, the word stands
as " forever ;" and in chapter ix. 16, "eternal." Finally, the term is
completely defined in Genesis vi. 4, in the following words : " There were
nepliclim (giants, fallen men, or Titans) on the earth." The word is
synonymous with ^on, atwv. In Proverbs viii. 23, it reads : " I was
effused from Oulam, from Ras" (wisdom). By this sentence, the
wise king-kabalist refers to one of the mysteries of the human spirit — the
immortal crown of the man-trinity. While it ought to read as above, and
Ije interpreted kabalistically to mean that the /(or my eternal, immortal
Ego), the spiritual entity, was effused from the boundless and nameless
eternity, through the creative wisdom of the unknown God, it reads in the
canonical translation : " The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his
way, before his works of old ! " which is unintelligible nonsense, without
the kabalistic interpretation. When Solomon is made to say that /was
" from the beginning . . . while, as yet, he (the Supreme Deity) had not
noade the earth nor the highest part of the dust of the world ... I was
there," and "when he appointed the foundations of the earth . . . then
I was by him, as one brought up loith him," what can the kabalist mean
by the " /," but his own divine spirit, a drop effused from that eternal
fountain of light and wisdom — the universal spirit of the Deity ?
The thread of glory emitted by En-Soph from the highest of the three
kabalistic heads, through which " all things shine with light," the thread
which makes its exit through Adam Primus, is the individual spirit of
every man. " I was daily his (En-Soph's) delight, rejoicing always be-
fore him . . . and my delights were with the sons of men,''' adds Solo-
mon, in the same chajiter of the Proverbs. The immortal spirit delights
in the sons of men, who, without this spirit, are but dualities (physical
body and astral soul, or that life-principle which animates even the low-
est of the animal kingdom). But, we have seen that the doctrine teaches
that this spirit cannot unite itself with that man in whom matter and the
grossest propensities of his animal soul will be ever crowding it out.
Therefore, Solomon, who is made to speak under the inspiration of his
own spirit, that possesses him for the time being, utters the following
words of wisdom : " Hearken unto me, my son " (the dual man),
" blessed are they who keep my ways. . . . Blessed is the man that
heareth nie, watching daily at my gates. . . . For whoso findeth me,
findeth life, and shall obtain favor of the Lord. . . . But he that
MEANING OF THE GNOSTIC ^ON. 219
sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul , . . and loves death " [Pro-
verbs vii. 1-36).
This chapter, as interpreted, is made by some theologians, like every-
thing else, to apply to Christ, the " Son of God," who states repeatedly,
that he who follows him obtains eternal life, and conquers death. But
even in its distorted translation it can be demonstrated that it referred to
anything but to the alleged Saviour. Were we to accept it in this sense,
then, the Christian theology would have to return, nolens volens, to
iVverroism and Buddhism ; to the doctrine of emanation, in short ; for
Solomon says : " I was eft'used " from Oulam and Rasit, both of which
are a part of the Deity ; and thus Christ would not be as their doctrine
claims, God himself, but only an emanation of Him, like the Christos of
the Gnostics. Hence, the meaning of the personified Gnostic ^on,
the word signifying cycles or determined periods in the eternity and at
the same time, representing a hierarchy of celestial beings — spirits.
Thus Christ is sometimes termed the " Eternal ^.on." But the word
"eternal" is erroneous in relation to the ^ons. Eternal is that which
has neither beginning nor end ; but the " Emanations " or yEons, although
having lived as absorbed in the divine essence from the eternity, when
once individually emanated, must be said to have a beginning. They may
be therefore endless in this spiritual life, never eternal.
These endless emanations of the one First Cause, all of which were
gradually transformed by the popular fancy into distinct gods, spirits,
angels, and demons, were so little considered immortal, that all were
assigned a limited existence. And this belief, common to all the peoples
of antiquity, to the Chaldean Magi as well as to the Egyptians, and even
in our day held by the Brahmanists and Buddhists, most triumphantly
evidences the monotheism of the ancient religious systems. This doc-
trine calls the life-period of all the inferior divinities, "one day of Para-
brahma." After a cycle of fourteen milliards, three hundred and twenty-
millions of human years — the tradition says — the trinity itself, with all the
lesser divinities, will be annihilated, together with the universe, and cease
to exist. Then another universe will gradually emerge from the pra-
laya (dissolution), and men on earth will be enabled to comprehend
SwAYAMBHUVA as he is. Alone, this primal cause will exist forever, in
all his glory, filling the infinite space. What better proof could be adduced
of the deep reverential feeling with which the "heathen" regard the one
Supreme eternal cause of all things visible and invisible.
This is again the source from which the ancient kabalists derived
identical doctrines. If the Christians understood Genesis in their own
way, and, if accepting the texts literally, they enforced upon the unedu-
cated masses the belief in a creation of our world out of nothing ; and
220 ISIS UNVEILED.
moreover assigned to it a heginning, it is surely not the Tanaim, the sole
expounders of the hidden meaning contained in the Bible, who are to be
blamed. No more than any other philosophers had they ever believed
either in spontaneous, limited, or ex nihilo creations. The Kabala has
survived to show that their philosophy was precisely that of the modern
Nepal Buddhists, the Svubhavikas. They believed in the eternity and
the indestructibility of matter, and hence in many prior creations and
destructions of worlds, before our own. " There were old worlds
which perished." * " From this we see that the Holy One, blessed be
His name, had successively created and destroyed sundry worlds, before
he created the present world ; and when he created this world he said :
' This pleases me ; the previous ones did not please me.' "f Moreover,
they believed, again like the Svabhavikas, now termed Atheists, that every
thing proceeds (is created) from its own nature and that once that the
first impulse is given by that Creative Force inherent in the " Self-
created substance," or Sephira, everything evolves out of itself, following
its pattern, the more spiritual prototype which precedes it in the scale of
infinite creation. " The indivisible point which has no limit, and cannot
be comprehended (for it is absolute), expanded from within, and formed
a brightness which served as a garment (a veil) to the indivisible points.
... It, too, expanded from within. . . . Thus, everything originated
through a constant upheaving agitation, and thus finally the world
originated." J
In the later Zoroastrian books, after that Darius had restored both
the worship of Ormazd and added to it the purer magianism of the primi-
tive Secret ]Visdom — mnDi-mum, of which, as the inscription tells us,
he was himself a hierophant, we see again reappearing the Zeru-ana, or
boundless time, represented by the Brahmans in the chakkra, or a circle ;
that we see figuring on the uplifted finger of the principal deities.
Further on, we will show the relation in which it stands to the Pythago-
rean, mystical numbers — the first and the last — which is a zero (0),
and to the greatest of the Mystery-Gods lAO. The identity of this
symbol alone, in all the old religions, is sufficient to show their common
descent from one primitive Faith. § This term of "boundless time,"
which can be applied but to the one who has neither beginning nor end, is
* Idra Suta ; " Sohar," iii., p. 292 b. \ Bereshith Rabba : " Parsha," ix.
\ " Sohar," i., p. 20 a.
§ " The Sanscrit j," says Max Miiller, "is represented by the s and h. Thus the
geograpliical name ' hapta hendu,' which occurs in the ' Avesta,' becomes intelligible,
if we retranslate the z and h into the Sanscrit J". Kor ' Sapta Sindhu,' or the seven
rivers, is the old Vaidic name for India itself" (" Chips," vol. i., p. 81). The
"Avesta " is the spirit of the " Vedas " — the esoteric meaning made partially known.
ZOROASTRIAN COSMOGONY AND ITS DERIVATIVES. 221
called by the Zoroastrians Zeruana-Akarene, because he has always existed.
"His glory," they say, is too exalted, his light too resplendent for either
human intellect or mortal eyes to grasp and see. His primal emana-
tion is eternal light which, from having been previously concealed in
darkness, was called out to manifest itself, and thus was formed Ormazd,
"the King of Life." He is the first-born of boundless time, but like his
own antit)'pe, or preexisting spiritual idea, has lived within primitive
darkness from all eternity. His Logos created the pure intellectual
world. After the lapse of three grand cycles * he created the material
world in six periods. The six Amshaspands, or primitive spiritual men,
whom Ormazd created in his own miage, are the mediators between this
world and himself. Mithras is an emanation of the Logos and the cliief
of the twenty eight izeds, who are the tutelary angels over the spiritual
portion of mankind — -the souls of men. The Ferouers are infinite in
number. They are the ideas or rather the ideal conceptions of things
which formed themselves in the mind of Ormazd or .Ahuramazda before
he willed them to assume a concrete form. They are what Aristotle
terms " privations " of forms and substances. The religion of Zarathus-
tra, as he is always called in the Avesta, is one from which the ancient
Jews have the most borrowed. In one of the Yashts, Ahuramazda, the
Supreme, gives to the seer as one of his sacred names, Ahmi, "I am ;"
and in another place, ahmi yat ahmi, " I am that I am," as Jehovah is
alleged to have given it to Moses.
This Cosmogony, adopted with a change of names in the Rabbinical
Kabala, found its way, later, with some additional speculations of Manes,
the half-Magus, half-Platonist, into the great body of Gnosticism. The
real doctrines of the Basilideans, Valentinians, and the Marcionites can-
not be correctly ascertained in the prejudiced and calumnious writings of
the Fathers of the Church; but rather in what remains of the works of
the Bardesanesians, known as the Nazarenes. It is next to impossible,
now that all their manuscripts and books are destroyed, to assign to any
of these sects its due part in dissenting views. But there are a few men
still living who have preserved books and direct traditions about the
Ophites, although they care little to impart them to the world. Among
the unknown sects of Mount Lebanon and Palestine the truth has been
concealed for more than a thousand years. And their diagram of the
Ophite scheme differs with the description of it given by Origen and
hence with the diagram of Matter, f
* What is generally understood in the " Avesta " system as a thousand years, means,
in the esoteric doctrine, a cycle of a duration known but to the initiates and which has
an allegorical sense.
f Matter : " Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme," pi. x.
222 ISIS UNVEILED.
The kabalistic trinity is one of tlie models of the Christian one. " The
ANCIENT whose name be sanctified, is with three heads, but which make
only one." * Tria capita exsculpa sunt, unum intra alterum, et alterum
supra alterum. Three heads are inserted in one another, and one over
the other. The first head is the Concealed Wisdom {Sapientia Abscon-
dita). Under this head is the ancient (Pythagorean Monad), the most
hidden of mysteries ; a head which is no head [captU quod non est caput) ;
no one can know what that is in this head. No intellect is able to com-
prehend this wisdom, f This Senior Sanctissimus is surrounded by the
three heads. He is the eternal light of the wisdom ; and the wisdom is
the source from which all the manifestations have begun. These three
heads, included in one head (which is no head) ; and these three are
bent down (overshadow) short-face (the son) and through them all
things shine with light." \ " En-Soph emits a thread from El or Al (the
highest God of the Trinity), and the light follows the thread and enters,
and passuig through makes its exit through Adam Primus (Kaduion),
who is concealed until the plan for arranging {^statuni dispositionis) is
ready ; it threads through him from his head to his feet ; and in him (in
the concealed Adam) is the figure of A man." §
" Whoso wishes to have an insight into the sacred unity, let him con-
sider a flame rising from a burning coal or a burning lamp. He will see
first a two-fold light — a bright white, and a black or blue light ; the white
light is above, and ascends in a direct light, while the blue, or dark light,
is below, and seems as the chair of the former, yet both are so intimately
connected together that they constitute only one flame. The seat, how-
ever, formed by the blue or dark light, is again connected with the burning
matter which is u?ider it again. The white light never changes its color,
it always remains white ; but various shades are observed in the lower
light, whilst the lowest light, moreover, takes two directions ; above, it is
connected with the white light, and below with the burning matter. Now,
this is constantly consuming itself, and perpetually ascends to the upper
light, and thus everything merges into a single unity." ||
Such were the ancient ideas of the trinity in the unity, as an ab-
straction. Man, who is the microcosmos of the macrocosmos, or of the
* Idra Suta: " Sohar," iii., p. 288.
f Ibid., sect, ii. \ Ibid., vil.
§ Jam vero quoniam hoc in loco recondita est ilia plane non utuntur, et tantum
de parte lucis ejus particepant quze demittitur et ingreditur intra filum Ain Soph pro-
tensum e Persona V^ (At-OoA) deorsum : intratque et perrumpit et transit per Adam
primum occuUum usque in statum dispositionis transitque per eum a capite usque ad
pedes ejus : et in co est figura hominis (" Kabbala Denudata," ii., p. 246).
1 "Sohar," i., p. 51 a.
THE KABALISTIC SHEKINAH. 223
archetypal heavenly man, Adam Kadmon, is likewise a trinity ; for he is
body, soul, and spirit.
" All that is created by the ' Ancient of the Ancients ' can live and
exist only by a male and a female," says the Sohar. * He alone, to whom
no one can say, " Thou," for he is the spirit of the White-Head in
whom the " Three Heads " are united, is uncreated. Out of the sub-
tile fire, on one side of the White Head, and of the "subtile air," on
the other, emanates Shekinah, his veil (the femininized Holy Ghost).
"This air," says Idra Rabba, " is the most occult (occultissimus) attribute
of the Ancient of die Days, f The Ancienter of the Ancienter is the
Concealed of the Concealed. J All things are Himself, and Himself is
concealed on every way. § The cranium of the White-Head has no
beginning, but its end has a shining reflection and a roundness which is
our universe."
" They regard," says Klenker, " the first-born as man and wife, in so
far as his Hght includes in itself all other lights, and in so far as his
spirit of life or breath of life includes all other life spirits in itself." |
The kabalistic Shekinah answers to the Ophite Sophia. Properly
speaking, Adam Kadmon is the Bythos, but in this emanation-system,
where everything is calculated to perplex and place an obstacle to
inquiry, he is the Source of Light, the first " primitive man," and at the
same time Ennoia, the Thought of Bythos, the Depth, for he is
Piraander.
The Gnostics, as well as the Nazarenes, allegorizing on the personifi-
cation, said that the First and Second man loved the beauty of Sophia,
(Sephira) the first woman, and thus the Father and the Son fecundated
the heavenly " Woman " and, from primal darkness procreated the visi-
ble light (Sephira is the Invisible, or Spiritual Light), " whom they
called the Anointed Christum, or King Messiah."^ This Christus is
the Adam of Dust before his fall, with the spirit of the Adonai, his
Father, and Shekinah Adonai, his mother, upon him ; for Adam Primus
is Adon, .A.donai, or Adonis. The primal existence manifests itself by
its wisdom, and produces the Intelligible Logos (all visible creation).
This wisdom was venerated by the Ophites under the form of a serpent.
So far we see that the first and second life are the two Adams, or the
first and the second man. In the former lies Eva, or the yet unborn
spiritual Eve, and she is within Adam Primus, for she is a part of him-
self, who is androgyne. The Eva of dust, she who will be called in
* Book iii., p. 290. t " Idra Rabba," §§ 541, 542.
t Ibid., iii., p. 36. § Ibid., p. 171.
j "Nat. und Urspr. d. Emanationslehre b.d. Kabbalisten," p. ii.
T "Iren^eus," p. 637.
224 ISIS UNVEILED.
Genesis " the mother of all that live," is within Adam the Second-
And now, from the moment of its first manifestation, the Lord Mano,
the UnintelHgible Wisdom, disappears from the scene of action. It will
manifest itself only as Shekinah, the grace ; for the Corona is " the
innermost Light of all Lights," and hence it is darkness' s own sub-
stance. *
In the Kabala, Shekinah is the ninth emanation of Sephira, which
contains the whole of the ten Sephiroth within herself. She belongs to
the third triad and is produced together with Malchuth or " Kingdom,"
of which she is the female counterpart. Otherwise she is held to be
higher than any of these ; for she is the " Divine Glory," the " veil," or
" garment," of En-Soph. The Jews, whenever she is mentioned in the
Targum, say that she is the glory of Jehovah, which dwelt in the tab-
ernacle, manifesting herself hke a visible cloud ; the " Glory" rested over
the Mercy-Seat in the Sanctum Sanctorum.
In the Nazarene or Bardesanian System, which may be termed the
Kabala within the Kabala, the Ancient of Days — Antiquus Altus, who
is the Father of the Demiurgus of the universe, is called the Third Life,
or Abatur ; and he is the Father of Fetahil, who is the architect of
the visible universe, which he calls into existence by the powers of his
genii, at the order of the " Greatest ; " the Abatur answering to the
" Father " of Jesus in the later Christian theology. These two superior
Lives then, are the crown within which dwfclls the greatest Ferho. " Be-
fore any creature came into existence the Lord Ferho existed." \ This
one is the First Life, formless and invisible ; in whom the living Spirit
of Life exists, the Highest Grace. The two are one from eternity,
for they are the I^ight and the cause of the Light. Therefore, they
answer to the kabalistic concealed wisdom, and to the concealed She-
kinah— the Holy Ghost. " This light, which is manifested, is the gar-
ment of the Heavenly Concealed," says Idra Suta. And the " heavenly
man " is the superior Adam. " No one knows his paths except Macro-
prosopus" (Long-face) — the Superior active god. \ Not as I am written
will I be read ; in this world my name will be written Jehovah and read
Adonai,"§ say the Rabbins, very correctly. Adonai is the Adam Kad-
raon ; he is Father and Mother both. By this double mediatorship
the Spirit of the " Ancient of the Ancient " descends upon the Micropro-
sopiis (Short-face) or the Adam of Eden. And the " Lord God breathes
into his nostrils the breath of life."
When the woman se])arates herself from her androgyne, and becomes
* "Idra Suta," ix. ; " Kabbala Denudata ;" see Pythagoras: "Monad,"
\ " Codex Nazaraeus," i., p. 145.
X " Idra Rabba," viii., pp. 107-109. § " Ausziige aus dem Sohar," p. II.
GNOSTIC, OPHITE, AND NAZARENE IDEAS. 225
a distinct individuality, the first story is repeated over again. Both the
Father and Son, the two Adams, love her beauty ; and then follows the
allegory of the temptation and fall. It is in the Kaba/a, as in the Ophite
system, in which both the Ophis and the Ophiomorphos are emanations
emblematized as serpents, the former representing Eternity, Wisdom,
and Spirit (as in the Chaldean Magisni of Aspic-worship and Wisdom-
Doctrine in the olden times), and the latter Cunning, Envy, and Matter.
Both spirit and matter are serpents ; and Adam Kadmon becomes the
Ophis who tempts himself — man and woman — to taste of the " Tree of
Good and Evil," in order to teach them the mysteries of spiritual wis-
dom. Light tempts Darkness, and Darkness attracts Light, for Dark-
ness is matter, and " the Highest Light shines not in its Teneh-a."
With knowledge comes the temptation of the Ophiomorphos, and he
prevails. The dualism of every existing religion is shown forth by the
fall. " I have gotten a man from the Lord" exclaims Eve, when the
Dualism, Cain and Abel — evil and good — is born. " And the Adam
knew Hua, his woman (astu), and she became pregnant and bore Ji^in,
and she said : nini-rN o^n Tij^p! Kiniti ais Yava. — I have gained or
obtained a husband, even Yava — Is, Ais — man." " Cum arbore peccati
Deus creavit seailum."
And now we will compare this system with that of the Jewish Gnos-
tics— the Nazarenes, as well as with other philosophies.
The ISH Amon, the pleroma, or the boundless circle within which lie
" all forms," is the thought of the power divine j it works in silence,
and suddenly light is begotten by darkness ; it is called the second life ;
and this one produces, or generates the third. This third light is " the
FATHER of all things that live," as Eua is the " mother of all that
live." He is the Creator who calls inert matter into life, through his
vivifying spirit, and, therefore, is called the ancient of the world. Abatur
is the Father who creates the first Adam, who creates in his turn the
second. Abatur opens a gate and walks to the dark water (chaos), and
looking down into it, the darkness reflects the image of Himself . . .
and lo ! a Son is formed — the Logos or Demiurge ; Fetahil, who is the
builder of the material world, is called into existence. According to the
Gnostic dogma, this was the Metatron, the Archangel Gabriel, or mes-
senger of life ; or, as the biblical allegory has it, the androgynous Adam-
Kadmon again, the Son, who, with his Father's spirit, produces the
anointed, or Adam before his fall.
When Swayambhuva, the " Lord who exists through himself," feels
impelled to manifest himself, he is thus described in the Hindu sacred
books.
Having been impelled to produce various beings from his own divine
IS
226 ISIS UNVEILED.
substance, he first manifested the waters which developed withm them-
selves a productive seed.
The seed became a germ bright as gold, blazing like the luminary
with a thousand beams ; and in that egg he was born himself, in the form
of Brahma, the great principle of all the beings [Manu, book i., slokas
8,9).
The Egyptian Kneph, or Chnuphis, Divine Wisdom, represented by
a serpent, produces an egg from his mouth, from which issues Phtha.
In this case Phtha represents the universal germ, as well as Brahma, who
is of the neuter gender, when the final a has a diaresis on it ; * otherwise
it becomes simply one of the names of the Deity. The former was the
model of the Three Lives of the Nazarenes, as that of the kabalistic
" Faces," Pharazupha, which, in its turn, furnished the model for the
Christian Trinity of Irenaeus and his followers. The egg was the primi-
tive matter which served as a material for the building of the visible uni-
verse ; it contained, as well as the Gnostic Pleroma, the kabalistic She-
kinah, the man and wife, the spirit and life, " whose light includes all
other lights" or life-spirits. This first manifestation was symbolized by- a
serpent, which is at first divine wisdom, but, falling into generation,
becomes polluted. Phtha is the heavenly man, the Egyptian Adam-
Kadmon, or Christ, who, in conjunction with the female Holy Ghost, the
ZoE, produces the five elements, air, water, fire, earth, and ether ; the
latter being a servile copy from the Buddhist A'd, and his five Dhyana
Buddhas, as we have shown in the preceding chapter. The Hindu
Swayambhuva-Nara, develops from himself the mother-principle, enclosed
within his own divine essence — Nari, the immortal Virgin, who, when
impregnated by his spirit, becomes Taumitra, the mother of the five
elements — air, water, fire, earth, and ether. Thus may be shown how
from the Hindu cosmogony all others proceed.
Knorr von Rosenroth, busying himself with the interpretation of the
Kabala, argues that, " In this first state (of secret wisdom), the infinite
God Himself can be understood as ' Father ' (of the new covenant).
But the Light being let down by the Infinite through a canal into the
'primal Adam,' or Messiah, and joined with him, can be applied to the
name Son. And the influx emitted down from him (the Son) to the
lower parts (of the universe), can be applied to the character of the Holy
Ghost." f Sophia-Achamoth, the half-spiritual, half-material Life, which
vivifies the inert matter in the depths of chaos, is the Holy Ghost of the
Gnostics, and the Spiritus (female) of the Nazarenes. She is — be it re-
* He is the universal and spiritual germ of all things,
t "Ad. Kabb. Chr.," p. 6.
COMPARISON WITH HINDU MYTHS.
227
membered— the sister of Christos, the perfect emanation, and both are
children or emanations of Sophia, the purely spiritual and intellectual
daughter of Bythos, the Depth. For the elder Sophia is Shekmah, the
Face of God, " God's Shekinah, which is his image." *
" The Son Zeus-Belus, or Sol-Mithra is an image of the Father, an
emanation from the Supreme Light," says Movers. "He passed for
Creator." \
" Philosophers say the first air is anima mundi. But the garment
(Shekinah) is higher than the first air, since it is joined closer to the En-
Soph, the Boundless." J Thus Sophia is Shekinah, and Sophia-Achamoth
the ani77ia mundi, the astral light of the kabalists, which contains the
spiritual and material germs of all that is. For the Sophia-Achamoth,
like Eve, of whom she is the prototype, is " the mother of all that live."
There are three trinities in the Nazarene system as well as in the
Hindu philosophy of the ante and early Vedic period. While we see
the few translators of the Kabala, the Nazarene Codex, and other abstruse
works, hopelessly floundering amid the interminable pantheon of names,
unable to agree as to a system in which to classify them, for the one
hypothesis contradicts and overturns the other, we can but wonder at all
this trouble, which could be so easily overcome. But even now, when
the translation, and even the perusal of the ancient Sanscrit has become
so easy as a point of comparison, they would never think it possible that
every philosophy — whether Semitic, Hamitic, or Turanian, as they call it,
has its key in the Hindu sacred works. Still facts are there, and facts
are not easily destroyed. Thus, while we find the Hindu trimurti triply
manifested as
Nara (or Para-Pouroucha), Agni,
Nari (Mariama), Vaya,
Viradj (Brahma), Surya,
and the Egyptian trinity as follows :
Kneph (or Amon), Osiris,
Maut (or Mut), Isis,
Khons, Horus,
the Nazarene System runs,
Feiho (Ish-Amon), Mano,
Chaos (dark water), Spiritus (female),
Fetahil, Ledhaio,
Brahma,
the Father,
Vishnu,
the Mother,
Siva,
the Son,
Ra (Horus), the Father,
Isis, the Mother,
Malouli, the Son ; §
Abatur, the Father,
Netubto, the Mother,
Lord Jordan, the Son.
The first is the concealed or non-manifested trinity — a pure abstrac-
tion. The other the active or the one revealed in the results of creation,
* ** Sohar," p. 93.
X "Kabbala Denudata," vol. ii., p. 236.
\ " Movers," p. 265.
§ ChampoUion, Junior: " Lettres."
228 ISIS UNVEILED.
proceeding out of the former — its spiritual prototype. The third is the
mutilated image of both the others, crystallized in the form of human
dogmas, which vary according to the exuberance of the national mate-
rialistic fancy.
The Supreme Lord of splendor and of light, luminous and refulgent,
before which no other existed, is called Corona (the crown) ; Lord Ferho,
the unrevealed life which existed in the former from eternity ; and Lord
Jordan — the spirit, the living water of grace. * He is the one through
whom alone we can be saved ; and thus he answers to the Shekinah, the
spiritual garment of En-Soph, or the Holy Ghost. These three constitute
the trinity in abscondito. The second trinity is composed of the three
lives. The first is the similitude of Lord Ferho, through whom he has
proceeded forth ; and the second Ferho is the King of Light — Mano
{Rex Lucis). He is the heavenly life and light, and older than the
Architect of heaven and earth.f The second life is Ish Anion (Pleroma),
the vase of election, containing the visible thought of the lordanus Alax-
imus — the type (or its intelligible reflection), the prototype of the living
water, who is the " spiritual Jordan." \ Third life, which is produced
by the other two, is Abatur {Ab, the Parent or Father). This is the
mysterious and decrepit " Aged of the Aged," the " Ancient Senem sui
obtegentem et grandcevum mundi." This latter third life is the Father of
the Demiurge Fetahil, the Creator of the world, whom the Ophites call
Ilda-Baoth, § though F'etahil is the only-begotten one, the reflection of
the Father, Abatur, who begets him by looking into the " dark water ; " ||
but the Lord Mano, " the Lord of loftiness, the Lord of all genii," is
higher than the Father, in this kabalistic Codex — one is purely spiritual,
the other material. So, or instance, while Abatur's "only begotten"
one is the genius Fetahil, the Creator of the physical world, Lord Mano,
the " I^ord of Celsitude," who is the son of Him, who is " the Father of
all who preach the Gospel," produces also an " only-begotten " one, the
Lord Lehdaio, "a just Lord." He is the Christos, the anointed, who
l)ours out the "grace" of the Invisible Jordan, the Spirit of the Highest
Crown.
In the Arcanum, " in the assembly of splendor, lighted by Mano, to
whom the scintillas of splendor owe their origin," the genii who live in
light " rose, they went to the visible Jordan, and flowing water . . . they
assembled for a counsel . . . and called forth the Only-Begotten Son
* " Codex NazarjEus," vol. ii., pp. 47-57. f Ibid., vol. i. , p. 145.
\ Ibid., vol. ii., p. 211. § Ibid., vol. i., p. 308.
il Sophia-Achamoth also begets her son Ilda-Baoth, the Demiurge, by looking into
chaos or matter, and by coming in contact with it.
AN APOCALYPTIC ALLEGORY EXPLAINED. 229,
i
of an imperishable image, and who cannot be conceived by reflection,
Lehdaio, the just Lord, and sprung from Lehdaio, the just lord, whom
the life had produced by his word." *
Mano is the chief of the seven .'^:ons, who are Mano {Rex Lucis)
Aiar Zivo, Ignis Vivus, Lux, Vita, Aqua Viva (the living water of
baptism, the genius of the Jordan), and Ipsa Vita, the chief of the six
genii, which form with him the mystic seven. The Nazarene Mano is
simply the copy of the Hindu first Manu — the emanation of Manu
Swayambhuva — from whom evolve in succession the six other Manus,
types of the subsequent races of men. We find them all represented by
the apostle-kabalist John in the " seven lamps of fire " burning before
the throne, which are the seven spirits of God," \ and in the seven angels
bearing the seven vials. Again in Fetahil we recognize the original of
the Christian doctrine.
In the Revelation of Joannes Theologos it is said : " I turned and
saw in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of
man . . . his head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow ;
and his eyes were as a flame of fire . . . and his feet hke unto fine brass,
as if they burned in a furnace" (i. 13, 14, 15). Johti here repeats, as is
well known, the words of Daniel and Ezekiel. " The Ancient of Days
. . . whose hair was white as pure wool . . . etc." And " the appear-
ance of a man . . . above the throne . . . and the appearance of fire,
and it had brightness round about." J The fire being " the glory of the
Lord." Fetahil is son of the man, the Third Life, and his upper part
is represented as white as snow, while standing near the tlnone of the
living fire he has the appearance of a flame.
All these " apocalyptic " visions are based on the description of the
" white head " of the Sohar, in whom the kabalistic trinity is united.
The white head, " which conceals in its cranium the spirit," and which is
environed by subtile fire. The " appearance of a man " is that of Adam
Kadmon, through which passes the thread of light represented by the
fire. Fetahil is the Vir JVbvissimis (the newest man), the son of Abatur,§
the latter being the " man," or the /Aird life, || now the third personage of
the trinity, /o/in sees "one like unto the son of man," holding in his
right hand seven stars, and standing between " seven golden candle-
sticks" {Revelation i.). Fetahil takes his " stand on high," according to
the will of his father, " the highest JVmvi who has seven sceptres,", and
* " Codex Nazarjeus," vol. ii., p. 109. See " Sod, the Son of the Man," for trans-
lation.
f Revelation iv. 5. % Ezekiel. § " Codex Nazarsus," voh ii., p. 127.
H The first androgyne duad being considered a unit in all the secret computations,
is, therefore, the Holy Ghost.
230 ISIS UNVEILED.
seven genii, who astronomically represent the seven planets or stars.
He stands " shining in the garment of the Lord's, resplendent by the
agency of the genii," * He is the Son of his Father, Life, and his mother,
Spirit, or Light, f The Logos is represented in the Gospel according to
John as one in whom was '■'Life, and the life was the light of men" (i. 4).
Fetahil is the Demiurge, and his father created the visible universe of
matter through him. J In the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians (iii. g),
God is said to have " created all things by Jesus." In the Codex the
Parent-LiFE says: "Arise, go, our son first-begotten, ordained for all
creatures." § "As the living father hath sent me," says Christ, "God
sent his only-begotten son that we might live." || Finally, having per-
formed his work on earth, Fetahil reascends to his father Abatur. " Et
qui, relicto guetn procreavit mundo, ad Abatur suum pair em contendit." 1
" My father sent me . . . I go to the Father," repeats Jesus.
Laying aside the theological disputes of Christianity which try to
blend together the Jewish Creator of the first chapter of Genesis with
the " Father " of the New Testament, Jesus states repeatedly of his
Father that " He is in secret." Surely he would not have so termed the
ever-present "Lord God" of the Mosaic books, vvho showed Himself to
Moses and the Patriarchs, and finally allowed all the elders of Israel
to look on Himself. ** When Jesus is made to speak of the temple at
Jerusalem as of his " Father's house," he does not mean the physical
building, which he maintains he can destroy and then again rebuild in
three days, but of the temple of Solomon ; the wise kabalist, who indi-
cates in his Proverbs that every man is the temple of God, or of his
own divine spirit. This term of the "Father who is in secret," we find
used as much in the Kabala as in the Codex Nazara-us, and elsewhere.
No one has ever seen the wisdom concealed in the "Cranium," and
no one has beheld the "Depth" (Bythos). Simon, the Magician,
preached "one Father unknown to all." f f
We can trace this appellation of a " secret " God still farther back.
In the Kabala the " Son " of the co?icealed Father who dwells in light
and glory, is the "Anointed," the Seir-Anpin, who unites in himself all
the Sephiroth, he is Christos, or the Heavenly man. It is through
Christ that the Pneuma, or the Holy Ghost, creates "all things"
* _" Codex Nazaraaus," vol. iii., p. 59. \ Ibid., vol. i., p. 285.
X Ibid,, vol. i., p. 309.
§Ibid., vol. i., p. 287. See "Sod, the Son of the Man," p. roi.
I) John iv. 9. T[ " Codex Nazarasus," vol. ii., p. 123.
** " Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders
of Israel. And they saw the God of Israel^'' Exodus xxiv. 9, 10.
ff Irenoius: " Clementine Homilies," I., x.\ii., p. 118.
WHAT ARE THE CHERUBIM AND SERAPHIM? 23 1
{Ephesians iii. 9), and produces the four elements, air, water, fire, and
earth. This assertion is unquestionable, for we find Irensus basing on
this fact his best argument for the necessity of there being four gospels.
There can be neither more nor fewer than four — he argues. " For as
there are four quarters of the world, and four general winds {KadoXlKo.
irvevfj.aTa) . . . it is right that she (the Church) should have four pillars.
From which it is manifest that the Word, the maker of all, he who sUteth
upon the Cherubim ... as David says, supplicating his advent, ' Thou
that sittest between the Cherubim, shine forth ! ' For the Cherubim also
are four-faced and their faces are symbols of the working of the Son of
God." *
We will not stop to discuss at length the special holiness of the four-
faced Cherubim, although we might, perhaps, show their origin in all
the ancient pagodas of India, in the vehans (or vehicles) of their chief
gods ; as likewise we might easily attribute the respect paid to them to
the kabalistic wisdom, .which, nevertheless, the Church rejects with
great horror. But, we cannot resist the temptation to remind the
reader that he may easily ascertain the several significances attributed
to these Cherubs by reading the Kabala. " When the souls are to leave
their abode," says the Sohar, holding to the doctrine of the pre-exist-
ence of souls in the world of emanations, " each soul separately
appears before the Holy King, dressed in a sublime form, with the fea-
tures in which it is to appear in this world. It is from this sublime form
that the image proceeds " [Sohar, iii., p. 104 ab). Then it goes on to
say that the types or forms of these faces are four in number — those of
the angel or man, of the Hon, the bull, and the eagle." Furthermore,
we may well express our wonder that Irenseus should not have re-en-
forced his argument for the four gospels — by citing the whole Pantheon
of the four-armed Hindu gods ?
Ezekiel in representing his four animals, now called Cherubim, as
types of the four symbolical beings, which, in his visions support the
throne of Jehovah, had not far to go for his models. The Chaldeo-
Babylonian protecting genii were familiar to him ; the Sed, Alap or
Kirub (Cherubim), the bull, with the human face ; the Nirgal, human-
headed hon ; Oustour the Sphinx-man ; and the Nathga, with its eagle's
head. The religion of the masters — the idolatrous Babylonians and
Assyrians — was transferred almost bodily into the revealed Scripture of
the Captives, and from thence came into Christianity.
Already, we find Ezekiel addressed by the likeness of the glory
of the Lord, " as Son of man." This peculiar title is used repeatedly
'Adv. Haes.,"lII., il, iS.
232 ISIS UNVEILED.
throughout the whole book of this prophet, which is as kabalistic as
the "roll of a book " which the " Glory " causes him to eat. It is writ-
ten within and without ; and its real meaning is identical with that of
the Apocalypse. It appears strange that so much stress should be laid
on this pecuhar appellation, said to have been applied by Jesus to him-
self, when, in the symbolical or kabalistic language, a prophet is so
addressed. It is as extraordinary to see Irenaeus indulging in such
graphic descriptions of Jesus as to show him, " the maker of all, sitting
upon a Cherubim," unless he identifies him with Shekinah, whose usual
place was among the Charoubs of the Mercy Seat. We also know that
the Cherubim and Seraphim are titles of the " Old Serpent " (the ortho-
dox Devil) the Seraphs being the burning or fiery serpents, in kabalistic
symbolism. The ten emanations of Adam Kadmon, called the
Sephiroth, have all emblems and titles corresponding to each. So, for
instance, the last two are Victory, or Jehovah-Sabaoth, whose symbol
is -the right column of Solomon, the Pillar Jachiii ; while glory is the
left Pillar, or Boaz, and its name is " the Old Serpent," and also " Sera-
phim and Cherubim." *
The "Son of man" is an appellation which could not be assumed
by any one but a kabalist. Except, as shown above, in the Old Testa-
ment, it is used but by one prophet — Ezekiel, the kabalist. In their
mysterious and mutual relations, the yEons or Sephiroth are represented
in the Kahala by a great number of circles, and sometimes by the figure
of a MAN, which is symbolically formed out of such circles. This man
is Seir-Anpin, and the 243 numbers of which his figure consists relate
to the different orders of the celestial hierarchy. The original idea of
this figure, or rather the model, may have been taken from the Hindu
Brahma, and the various castes typified by the several parts of his body,
as King suggests in his G?iostics. In one of the grandest and most
beautiful cave-temples at EUora, Nasak, dedicated to Vishvakarma,
son of Brahma, is a representation of this God and his attributes. To
one acquainted with Ezekiel's description of the "likeness of four
living creatures," every one of which had four faces and the hands of
a man under its wings, etc.,- f this figure at EUora must certainly appear
absolutely biblical. Brahma is called the father of " man," as well as
Jupiter and other highest gods.
It is in the Buddhistic representations of Mount Meru, called by the
Burmese My'e-nmo, and by the Siamese Sineru, that we find one of the
originals of the Adam Kadmon, Seir-Anpin, the " heavenly man," and
of all the ^ons, Sephiroth, Powers, Dominions, Thrones, Virtues, and
* See King's "Gnostics." f Ezekiel i.-ii.
THE INDIAN MERU-GODS, SEPHIROTH. 233
Dignities of the Kabala. Between two pillars, whicli are connected by
an arch, the key-stone of the latter is represented by a crescent. This is
the domain in which dwells the Supreme Wisdom of A'di Buddha, the
Supreme and invisible Deity. Beneath this highest central point comes
the circle of the direct emanation of the Unknown— the circle of Brahma
with some Hindus, of the first avatar of Buddha, according to others.
This answers to Adam Kadraon and the ten Sephiroth. Nine of the
emanations are encircled by the tenth, and occasionally represented by
pagodas, each of which bears a name which expresses one of the chief
attributes of the manifested Deity. Then below come the seven stages,
or heavenly spheres, each sphere being encircled by a sea. These are
the celestial mansions of the devatas, or gods, each losing somewhat in
holiness and purity as it approaches the earth. Then comes Meru itself,
formed of numberless circles within three large ones, typifying the trinity
of man ; and for one acquainted with the numerical value of the letters in
bibhcal names, like that of the " Great Beast," or that of Mithra fjiuOpas
afipa^ai, and others, it is an easy matter to establish the identity of the
Meru-gods with the emanations or Sephiroth of the kabahsts. Also the
genii of the Nazarenes, with their special missions, are all found on this
most ancient mythos, a most perfect representation of the symbolism of
the "secret doctrine," as taught in archaic ages.
King gives a few hints — though doubtless too insufficient to teach
anything important, for they are based upon the calculations of Bishop
Newton * — as to this mode of finding out mysteries in the value of letters.
However, we find this great archaeologist, who has devoted so much time
and labor to the study of Gnostic gems, corroborating our assertion. He
shows that the entire theory is Hindu, and points out that the durga, or
female counterpart of each Asiatic god, is what the kabalists term active
Virtue \ in the celestial hierarchy, a term which the Christian Fathers
adopted and repeated, without fully appreciating, and the meaning of
which the later theology has utterly disfigured. But to return to Meru.
* " Gnostics and their Remains."
■)• "Although this science is commonly supposed to be peculiar to the Jewish Tal-
mudists, there is no doubt that they borrowed the idea from a foreign source, and that
from the Chaldeajis, the founders of magic art" says King, in the " Gnostics." The
titles lao and Abraxas, etc., instead of being recent Gnostic figments, were indeed holy
names, borrowed from the most ancient formulse of the East. Pliny must allude to
them when he mentions the virtues ascribed by the Magi to amethysts engraved with
the names of tlie sun and moon, names not expressed in either the Greek or Latin
tontmes. In the " Eternal Sun," the ^'Airaxas," the " Adonai," of these gems, we
recognize the very amulets ridiculed by the philosophic Pliny (" Gnostics," pp. 79, 80) ;
Virtues (miracles) as employed by Irenseus.
234 ISIS UNVEILED.
The whole is surrounded by the Maha Samut, or the great sea— the
astral light and ether of the kabalists and scientists ; and within the cen-
tral circles appears " the likeness of a man." He is the Achadoth of
the Nazarenes, the twofold unity, or the androgyne man ; the heavenly
incarnation, and a perfect representation of Seir-Anpin (short-face), the
son of Arkh Ajipin (long-face). * This likeness is now represented in
many lamaseries by Gautama-Buddha, the last of the incarnated avatars.
Still lower, under the Meru, is the dwelling of the great Naga, who is
called Rajah Naga, the king-serpent — the serpent of Genesis, the Gnostic
Ophis — and the goddess of the earth, Bhumay Nari, or Yama, who waits
upon the great dragon, for she is Eve, " the mother of all that live." Still
lower is the eighth sphere, the infernal regions. The uppermost regions
of Brahma are surrounded by the sun, moon, and planets, the seven stel-
lars of the Nazarenes, and just as they are described in the Codex.
" The seven impostor-D»mons who deceive the sons of Adam. The
name of one is Sol ; of another Spiritus Vencreus, Astro ; of the third
Nebii, Mercurius a false Messiah; . . . the name of a fourth is Sin
Luna ; the fifth is Kiiin, Saturnus ; the sixth, Bel-Zeus ; the seventh,
Nerig-J/tz;'j-. " \ Then there are " Seven Lives procreated," seven good
Stellars, " which are from Cabar Zio, and are those bright ones who shine
in their own form and splendor that pours from on high. ... At the
gate of the House of Life the throne is fitly placed for the Lord of
Splendor, and there are three habitations. " J , The habitations of the
Triinurti, the Hindu trinity, are placed beneath the key-stone — the golden
crescent, in the representation of Meru. " And there was under his feet
(of the God of Israel) as it were a paved work of a sapphire-stone "
{Exodus xxiv. lo). Under the crescent is the heaven of Brahma, all
paved with sapphires. The paradise of Indra is resplendent with a thou-
sand suns ; that of Siva (Saturn), is in the northeast ; his throne is formed
of lapis-lazuli and the floor of heaven is of fervid gold. " When he sits
on the throne he blazes with fire up to the loins." At Hurdwar, during
the fair, in which he is more than ever Mahadeva, the highest god, the
attributes and emblems sacred to the Jewish " Lord God," may be recog-
nized one by one in those of Siva. The Binlang stone, § sacred to this
Hindu deity, is an unhewn stone like the Beth-el, consecrated by the
Patriarch Jacob, and set up by him "for a pillar," and hke the latter
* So called to distinguish the short-face, who is exterior, " from the venerable sacred
ancient " (the " Idra Rabba," iii., 36 ; v 54). Seir-Anpin is the "image of the Father."
" He that hath seen me hath seen my Father " (John xiv. 9).
f " Codex Nazaraius," vol. iii., p. 57. \ Ibid., vol. iii., p. 6l.
^ This stone, of a sponge-like surface, is found in Narmada and seldom to be seen
in other places.
THE EVANGELIST JOHN DESCRIBES SIVA. 235
Binlang is anointed. We need hardly remind the student that the linga,
the emblem sacred to Siva and whose temples are modelled after this
form, is identical in shape, meaning, and purpose with the "pillars" set
up by the several patriarchs to mark their adoration of the Lord God.
In fact, one of these patriarchal hthoi might even now be carried in the
Sivaitic processions of Calcutta, without its Hebrew derivation being sus-
pected. The four arms of Siva are often represented with appendages
like wings ; he has three eyes and a fourth in the crescent, obtained
by him at the churning of the ocean, as Pancha Mukhti Siva has four
heads.
In this god we recognize the description given by Ezekiel, in the first
chapter of his book, of his vision, in which he beholds the " likeness of a
man" in the four living creatures, who had "four faces, four wings,"
who had one pair of " straight feet . . . which sparkled like the color of
burnished brass . . . and their rings were full of eyes round about them
four." It is the throne and heaven of Siva that the prophet describes in
saying "... and there was the likeness of a throne as the appearance
of a sapphire stone . . . and I saw as the color of amber (gold) as the ap-
pearance of fire around about . . . from his loins even upward, and from
the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appear-
ance of fire" [Ezekieli. 27). " And his feet like unto fine brass, as if
they burned in a furnace" {Revelation \. 15). "As for their faces . . ,
one had the face of a cherub, and the face of a lion . . . they also had
the face of an ox and the face of an eagle" {Ezekiel \. 10, x. 14). This
foiitfold appearance which we find in the two cherubims of gold on the
two ends of the ark; these symbolic ioxix faces being adopted, moreover,
later, one by each evangelist, as may be easily ascertained from the
pictures of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,* prefixed to their respective
gospels in the Roman Vulgate and Greek Bibles.
"Taaut, the great god of the Phoenicians," says Sanchoniathon, "to
express the character of Saturn or Kronos, made his image having four
eyes . . . two before, two behind, open and closed, and four wings, two
expanded, two folded. The eyes denote that the god sees in sleep, and
sleeps in waking ; the position of the wings that he flies in rest, and rests
in flying."
The identity of Saturn with Siva is corroborated still more when we
consider the emblem of the latter, the damara, which is an hour-glass, to
show the progress of time, represented by this god in his capacity of a
destroyer. The bull Nardi, the vehan of Siva and the most sacred em-
* John has an eagle near him ; Luke, a bull ; Mark, a lion ; and Matthew, an
angel— the kabalistic quaternary of the, Egyptian Tarot.
236 ISIS UNVEILED.
bleiii of this god, is reproduced in the Egyptian Apis ; and in the bull
created by Ormazd and killed ..by Ahriman. The religion of Zoroaster,
all based upon the " secret doctrine," is found held by the people of
Eritene ; it was the religion of the Persians when they conquered the
Assyrians. From thence it is easy to trace the introduction of this em-
blem of Life represented by the Bull, in every religious system. The
college of the Magians had accepted it with the change of dynasty;*
Daniel is described as a Rabbi, the chief of the Babylonian astrologers
and Magi ; f therefore we see the Assyrian little bulls and the attributes
of Siva reappearing under a hardly modified form in the cherubs of the
Talmudistic Jews, as we have traced the bull Apis in the sphinxes or
cherubs of the Mosaic Ark ; and as we find it several thousand years
later in the company of one of the Christian evangelists, Luke.
Whoever has lived in India long enough to acquaint himself even
superficially with the native deities, must detect the similarity between
Jehovah and other gods besides Siva. As Saturn, the latter was
always held in great respect by the Tahnudists. He was held in
reverence by the Alexandrian kabalists as the direct inspirer of the law
and the prophets ; one of the names of Saturn was Israel, and we will
show, in time, his identity in a certain way with Abram, which Movers and
others hinted at long since. Thus it cannot be wondered at if Valen-
tinus, Basilides, and the Ophite Gnostics placed the dwelling of their
Ilda-Baoth, also a destroyer as well as a creator, in the planet Saturn ;
for it was he who gave the law in the wilderness and spoke through the
prophets. If more proof should be required we will show it in the testi-
mony of the canonical Bible itself. In Amos the " I^ord " pours vials
of wrath upon the people of Israel. He rejects their burnt-offerings and
will not listen to their prayers, but inquires of Amos, " have ye offered
unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of
Israel?" "But ye have borne the tabernacles of your Moloch and
Chiun your images, the star of your god" (v. 25, 26). Who are Moloch
and Chiun but Baal — Saturn — Siva, and Chiun, Kivan, the same Saturn
whose star the Israelites had made to themselves ? There seems no
escape in this case ; all these deities are identical.
The same in the case of the numerous Logoi. While the Zoroastrian
Sosiosh is framed on that of the tenth Brahmanical Avatar, and the fifth
Buddha of the followers of Gautama ; and we find the former, after having
passed part and parcel into the kabalistic system of king Messiah, re-
flected in the Apostle Gabriel of the Nazarenes, and yEbel-Zivo, the
Legatus, sent on earth by the Lord of Celsitude and Light ; all of these —
* See Matter, upon the subject. f Consult Book of Daniel, iv., v.
THE PERSIAN SOSIOSH IN THE APOCALYPSE. 237
Hindu and Persian, Buddhist and Jewish, the Christos of the Gnostics
and the Philonean Logos — are found combined in '-the Word made
flesh" of the fourth Gospel. Christianity includes all these systems,
patched and arranged to meet the occasion. Do we take up the Avesta
■ — we find there the dual system so prevalent in the Christian scheme.
The struggle between Ahriman, * Darkness, and Ormazd, Light, has been
going on in the world continually since the beginning of time. When the
worst ariives and Ahriman will seera to have conquered the world and
corrupted all mankind, then will appear the ^ff7'w?/r of mankind, Sosiosh.
He will come seated upon a white horse and followed by an army of good
genii equally mounted on milk-white steeds. \ And this we find faith-
fully copied in the Revelation : " I saw heaven opened, and beheld a
white horse ; and he that sal upon him was called faithful and true. . . .
And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses "
{^Revelation xix. 11, 14). Sosiosh himself is but a later YQxi\zx\ permu-
tation of the Hindu Vishnu. The figure of this god may be found unto
this day representing him as the Saviour, the " Preserver " (the preserv-
ing spirit of God), in the temple of Rama. The picture shows him in his
tenth incarnation- — the Kalki avatar, which is yet to come — as an armed
warrior mounted upon a white horse. Waving over his head the sword
destruction, he holds in his other hand a discus, made up of rings en-
circled in one another, an emblem of the revolving cycles or great ages,J
for Vishnu will thus appear but at the end of the Kaliyug, answering to
the end of the world expected by our Adventists. " And out of his
mouth goeth a sharp sword ... on his head were many crowns"
{Revelation xix. 12). Vishnu is often represented with several crowns
superposed on his head. " And I saw an angel standing on the Sun "
(17). The white horse is the horse of the Sun.^ Sosiosh, the Persian
Saviour, is also born of a virgin, || and at the end of days he will come as
a Redeemer to regenerate the world, but he will be preceded by two
prophets, who will come to announce him. ^ Hence the Jews who had
Moses and Elias, are now waiting for the Messiah. " Then comes the
* Ahriman, the production of Zoroaster, is so called in hatred of the Arias or
Aryas, the Brahmans against whose dominion the Zoroastrians had revolted. Although
an Arya (a noble, a sage) himself, Zoroaster, as in the case of the Devas whom he dis-
graced from gods to the position of devils, hesitated not to designate this type of the
spirit of evil under the name of his enemies, the Brahman-Aryas. The whole struggle
of Ahura-mazd and Ahriman is but the allegory of the great religious and political war
between Brahmanism and Zoroastrianism.
\ " Nork," ii., 146. t '^^^- '^''' Maurice takes it also to mean the cycles.
§ " Duncker," ii., 363 ; Spiegel's " Avesta," i., 32, 34,
II See the " Book of Dehesh," 47.
^ See King's translation of the " Zend Avesta," in his " Gnostics," p. 9.
238 ISIS UNVEILED.
general resurrection, when the good will immediately enter into this
happy abode — the regenerated earth ; and Ahriman and his angels
(the devils),* and the wicked, be purified by immersion in a lake of
molten metal. . . . Henceforward, all will enjoy unchangeable happi-
ness, and, headed by Sosiosh, ever sing the praises of the Eternal One."f
The above is a perfect repetition of Vishnu in his tenth avatar, for he
will then throw the wicked into the infernal abodes in which, after purify-
ing themselves, they will be pardoned — even those devils which rebelled
against Brahma, and were hurled into the bottomless pit by Siva, \ as
also the " blessed ones " will go to dwell with the gods, over the Mount
Meru.
Having thus traced the similarity of views respecting the Logos, Met-
atron, and Mediator, as found in the Kabala and the Codex of the Chris-
tian Nazarenes and Gnostics, the reader is prepared to appreciate the
audacity of the Patristic scheme to reduce a purely metaphysical figure
into concrete form, and make it appear as if the finger of prophecy had
from time immemorial been pointing down the vista of ages to Jesus as
the coming Messiah. A theomythos intended to symbolize the coming
day, near the close of the great cycle, when the "glad tidings" from
heaven should proclaim the universal brotherhood and common faith of
humanity, the day of regeneration — was violently distorted into an ac-
complished fact.
" Why callest thou me good ? there is none good but one, that is
God," says Jesus. Is this the language of a God ? of the second person
in the Trinity, who is identical with the First ? And if this Messiah, or
Holy Ghost of the Gnostic and Pagan Trinities, had come in his person,
what did he mean by distinguishing between himself the "Son of man,"
and the Holy Ghost ? " And whosoever shall speak a word against the
Son of man, it shall be forgiven him ; but unto him that blasphemeth
against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven," he says.§ And how
account for the marvellous identity of this very language, with the pre-
cepts enunciated, centuries before, by the Kabahsts and the "Pagan"
initiates ? The following are a few instances out of many.
" No one of the gods, no man or Lord, can be good, but only God
alone," says Hermes. ||
* The daevas or devils of the Iranians contrast with the devas or deities of India.
f "Nork," ii., 146.
|Tlie Bishop of Ephesus, 218 A.D. ; Eiisebius : " H. E." iii., 31. Origen stoutly
maintained the doctrine of eternal punishment to be erroneous. He held that at the
second advent of Christ even the devils among the damned would be forgiven. The
eternal damnation is a later Christian thought.
g Lulce xii. 10. ] " Hermes Trismegistus," vi. 55.
JESUS ONLY CLAIMS TO BE MAN. 239
"To be a good man is impossible, God alone possesses this privil-
ege," repeats Plato, with a slight variation. *
Six centuries before Christ, the Chinese philosopher Confucius said
that his doctrine was simple and easy to comprehend {Lun-yii, chap. 5,
§ ij). To which one of his disciples added: "The doctrine of our
Master consists in having an invariable correctness of heart, and in
doing toward others as we would that they should do to us." f
" Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles," %
exclaims Peter, long after the scene of Calvary. " There was a man sent
from God, whose name was John," § says the fourth Gospel, thus placing
the Baptist on an equality with Jesus. John the Baptist, in one of the
most solemn acts of his life, that of baptizing Christ, thinks not that he
is going to baptize a God, but uses the word man. "This is he of whom
I said, after me cometh a man." || Speaking of himself, Jesus says, " You
seek to kill me. a man that hath told you the truth, which / have heard
of God." T Even the blind man of Jerusalem, healed by the great thau-
raaturgist, full of gratitude and admiration for his benefactor, in narrat-
ing the miracle does not call Jesus God, but simply says, "... a 7nan
that is called Jesus, made clay." **
We do not close the list for lack of other instances and proofs, but
simply because what we now say has been repeated and demonstrated
by others, many times before us. But there is no more incurable evil
than blind and unreasoning fanaticism. Few are the men who. like Dr.
Priestley, have the courage to write, " We find nothing like divinity
ascribed to Christ before Justin Martyr (a.d. 141), who, from being a
philosopher, became a Christian." ff
Mahomet appeared nearly six hundred years JJ after the presumed
deicide. The Grjeco-Roman world was still convulsed with religious dis-
sensions, withstanding all the past imperial edicts and forcible Christian-
ization. While the Council of Trent was disputing about the Vulgate, the
unity of God quietly superseded the trinity, and soon the Mahometans
outnumbered the Christians. Why? Because their prophet never
sought to identify himself with Allah. Otherwise, it is safe to say, he
would not have lived to see his religion flourish. Till the present day
Mahometanism has made and is now making more proselytes than Chris-
tianity. Buddha Siddhartha came as a simple mortal, centuries before
Christ. The religious ethics of this faith are now found to far exceed
* Plato Protogoras ; " Cory," p. 274.
f Panthier : " La Chine," ii., 375 ; " Sod, the Son of the Man," p. 97.
% Acts ii. 22. § John i. 6. 1 Ibid., 30. If John viii. 40. ** Ibid., ix. 11.
if Priestley : " History of Early Christianity," p. 2, sect. 2.
\X Mahomet was born in 571 A.D.
240 ISIS UNVEILED.
in moral beauty anything ever dreamed of by the TertuUlans and Au-
gustines.
The true spirit of Christianity can alone be fully found in Buddhism :
partially, it shows itself in other "heathen" religions. Buddha never
made of himself a god, nor was he deified by his followers. The Budd-
hists are now known to far outnumber Christians ; they are enumerated
at nearly 500,000,000. While cases of conversion among Buddhists,
Brahmanists, Mahometans, and Jews become so rare as to show how sterile
are the attempts of our missionaries, atheism and materialism spread
their gangrenous ulcers and gnaw every day deeper 'at the very heart
of Christianity. There are no atheists among heathen populations, and
those few among the Buddhists and Brahmans who have become infected
with materialism may always be found to belong to large cities densely
thronged with Europeans, and or ly among educated classes. Truly says
Bishop Kidder: "Were a wise man to choose his religion from those
who profess it, perhaps Christianity would be the last religion he would
choose ! "
In an able httle pamphlet from the pen of the popular lecturer, J.
M. Peebles, M.D., the author quotes, from the London AthencBum, an
article in which are described the welfare and civilization of the inhabi-
tants of Yarkand and Kashgar, " who seem virtuous and happy."
" Gracious Heavens ! " fervently exclaims the honest author, who him-
self was once a Universalist clergyman, " Grant to keep Christian mis-
sionaries away from ' happy' and heathen Tartary ! " *
From the earliest days of Christianity, when Paul upbraided the
Church of Corinth for a crime " as is not so much as named among the
Gentiles — that one should have his father's wife ; " and for their mak-
ing a pretext of the " Lord's Sa|5per " for debauch and drunkenness
(i Corinthians, v. i), the profession of the name of Christ has ever been
more a pretext than the evidence of holy feeling. However, a correct
form of this verse is: " Eveiywhere the lewd practice among you is
heard about, such a lewd practice as is nowhere among the heathen
nations — even the having or marrying of the father's wife. " The Per-
sian influence would seem to be indicated in this language. The prac-
tice existed " nowhere among the nations," except in Persia, where it
was esteemed especially meritorious. Hence, too, the Jewish stories of
Abraham marrying his sister, Nahor, his niece, Amram his father's sister,
and Judah his son's widow, whose children appear to have been legiti-
mate. The Aryan tribes esteemed endogamic marriages, while the
Tartars and all barbarous nations required all alliances to be exagamous.
* J. M. Peebles: " Jesus— Man, Myth, or God ? "
THE RAISING OF KALAVATTI. 241
There was but one apostle of Jesus worthy of that name, and that
was Paul. However disfigured were his Epistles by dogmatic hands
before being admitted into the Canon, his conception of the great and
divine figure of the philosopher who died for his idea can still be traced
in his addresses to the various Gentile nations. Only, he who would
understand him better yet must study the Philonean Logos reflecting now
and then the Hindu Sabda (logos) of the Mimansa school.
As to the other apostles, those whose names are prefixed to the Gos-
pels— we cannot well believe in their veracity when we find them attrib-
uting to their Master miracles surrounded by circumstances, recorded, if
not in the oldest books of India, at least in such as antedated Chris-
tianity, and in the very phraseology of the traditions. Who, in his days of
simple and bhnd credulity, but marvelled at the touching narrative given
in the Gospels according to Mark and Luke of the resurrection of the
daughter of Jairus ? Who has ever doubted its originality ? And yet
the story is copied entirely from the Hari-Purana, and is recorded among
the miracles attributed to Christna. We translate it from the French
version :
"The King Angashuna caused the betrothal of his daughter, the
beautiful Kalavatti, with the young son of Varnadeva, the powerful King
of Antarvedi, named Govinda, to be celebrated with great pomp.
" But as Kalavatti was amusing herself in the groves with her com-
panions, she was stung by a serpent and died. Angashuna tore his
clothes, covered himself with ashes, and cursed the day when he was
born.
" Suddenly, a great rumor spread through the palace, and the following
cries were heard, a thousand times repeated : '■ Pacya pilar am ; pacya
gurum ! ' ' The Father, the Master ! ' Then Christna approached,
smiUng, leaning on the arm of Ardj una. . . . ' Master !' cried Angashuna,
casting himself at his feet, and sprinkling them with his tears, ' See
my poor daughter ! ' and he showed him the body of Kalavatti, stretched
upon a mat. . . .
" ' Why do you weep ? ' replied Christna, in a gentle voice. ' Do
you not see that she is steeping 1 Listen to the sound of her breathing,
like the sigh of the night wind which rustles the leaves of the trees.
See, her cheeks resuming their color, her eyes, whose lids tremble as if
they were about to open ; her lips quiver as if about to speak ; she is
sleeping, 1 tell you ; and hold ! see, she moves, Kalavatti ! Rise and
walk ! '
" Hardly had Christna spoken, when the breathing, warmth, move-
ment, and life returned httle by little, into the corpse, and the young
girl, obeying the injunction of the demi-god, rose from her couch and
16
242 ISIS UNVEILED.
rejoined her companions. But the crowd marvelled and cried out :
' This is a god, since death is no more for him than sleep ? ' " *
All such parables are enforced upon Christians, with the addition of
dogmas which, in their extraordinary character, leave far behind them the
wildest conceptions of heathenism. The Christians, in order to believe
in a Deity, have found it necessary to kill their God, that they them-
selves should live !
And now, the Supreme, unknown one, the Father of grace and
mercy, and his celestial hierarchy are managed by the Church as though
they were so many theatrical stars and supernumeraries under salary ! Six
centuries before the Christian era, Xenophones had disposed of such
anthropomorphism by an immortal satire, recorded and preserved by
Clement of Alexandria :
" There is one God Supreme
Whose form is not like mito man's, and as unlike his nature ;
But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten
With human sensations, and voice, and corporeal members ;
So if oxen or lions had hands and could work in man's fashion,
And trace out with chisel or brush their conception of Go'dhead
Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen,
Each kind the Divine with its own form and nature endowing." -j-
And hear Vyasa — the poet-pantheist of India, who, for all the
scientists can prove, may have lived, as Jacolliot has it, some fifteen
thousand years ago — discoursing on Maya, the illusion of the senses :
" All rehgious dogmas only serve to obscure the intelligence of
man. . . . Worship of divinities, under the allegories of which is hidden
respect for natural laws, drives away truth to the profit of the basest
superstitions " ( Vyasa Maya).
It was given to Christianity to paint us God Almighty after the model
of the kabahstic abstraction of the "Ancient of Days." From old
frescos on cathedral ceilings ; Catholic missals, and other icons and
images, we now find him depicted by the poetic brush of Gustave Dor6.
The awful, unknown majesty of Him, whom no " heathen " dared to
reproduce in concrete form, is figuring in our own century in Dore's
Illustrated Bible. Treading upon clouds that float in mid-air, darkness
and chaos behind him and the world beneath his feet, a majestic old
man stands, his left hand gathering his flowing robes about him, and his
right raised in the gesture of command. He has spoken the Word, and
"■ Translated from the " Haii-Purana," by Jacolliot : " Christna, et le Christ."
f Clement : " Al. Strom. ," v. 14, § 1 10 ; translation given in " Supernatural Reli-
gion," vol. i, p. 77.
EPISCOPAL PASSPORTS TO HEAVEN. 243
from his towering person streams an effulgence of Light — the Shekinah.
As a poetic conception, the composition does honor to the artist, but
does it honor God ? Better, the cliaos behind Him, than the figure
itself ; for there, at least, we have a solemn mystery. For our part, we
prefer the silence of the ancient heathens. With such a gross, anthropo-
morphic, and, as we conceive, blasphemous representation of the First
Cause, who can feel surprised at any iconographic extravagance in the rep-
resentation of the Christian Christ, the apostles, and the putative Saints ?
With the Catholics St. Peter becomes quite naturally the janitor of
Heaven, and sits at the door of the celestial kingdom — a ticket-taker to
the Trinity !
In a religious disturbance which recently occurred in one of the
Spanish-American provinces, there were found upon the bodies of some
of the killed, passports signed by the Bishop of the Diocese and
addressed to St. Peter; bidding him " admit the bearer as a true son of
the Church." It was subsequently ascertained that these unique docu-
ments were issued by the Catholic prelate just before his deluded
parishioners went into the fight at the instigation of their priests.
In their immoderate desire to find evidence for the authenticity of
the New Testament, the best men, the most erudite scholars even among
Protestant divines, but too often fall into deplorable traps. We cannot
believe that such a learned commentator as Canon West'cott could have
left himself in ignorance as to Talmudistic and purely kabalistic
writings. How then is it that we find him quoting, with such serene
assurance as presenting " striking analogies to the Gospel of St.. John"
passages from the work of The Pastor of Hernias, which are complete
sentences from the kabalistic literature? "The view which Hermas
gives of Christ's nature and work is no less harmonious with apostolic
doctrine, and it offers striking analogies to the Gospel of St. John.
. . . He (Jesus) is a rock higher than the mountains, able to hold
the whole world, ancient, and yet having a new gate ! . . . He is
older than creation, so that he took counsel with the Father about the
creation which he made. . . . No one shall enter in unto him otherwise
than by his Son." *
Now while — as the author of Supernatural Religion well proves — there
* This work, " The Pastor of Hermas," is no longer extant, but appears only in
the " Stichometry " of Nicephorus ; it is now considered an apocrypha. But, in the days
of Irenaaus, it was quoted as Holy Scripture (see "Sup. Religion," vol. i., p. 257) by
the Fathers, held to be divinely inspired, and publicly read in the churches (Irenoeus :
"Adv. Hsr.," iv. 20). When Tertullian became a Montanist he rejected it, after
haviug asserted its divinity (Tertullian : " De Oral.," p, 12).
1244 ISIS UNVEILED.
is nothing in this which looks like a corroboration of the doctrine taught
in the fourth gospel, he omits to state that nearly everything expressed
by the pseudo-Hermas in relation to his parabolic conversation with the
" Lord " is a plain quotation, with repeated variations, from the Sohar
and other kabalistic books. We may as well compare, so as to leave
the reader in no difficulty to judge for himself.
" God," says Hernias, "planted the vineyard, that is, He created the
people and gave them to His Son ; and the Son . . . himself cleansed
their sins, etc. ; " i. e., the Son washed them in his blood, in commemo-
ration of which Christians drink wine at the communion. In the Kahala
it is shown that the Aged of the Aged, or '■^Long-Face" plants a vine-
yard, the latter typifying mankind ; and a vine, meaning Life. The
Spirit oi " King Messiah" is, therefore, shown as washing his garments
in the 7vine from above, from the creation of the world. * Adam, or
A-Dam is " blood." The life of the flesh is in the blood (nephesh — soul),
Leviticus xvii. And Adam-Kadmon is the Only-Begotten. Noah also
plants a vineyard — the allegorical hot-bed of future humanity. As a con-
sequence of the adoption of the same allegory, we find it reproduced in
the Nazarene Codex. Seven vines are procreated, which spring from
lukabar Ziva, and Ferho (or Parclia) Raba waters them. | When the
blessed will ascend among the creatures of Light, they shall see lavar-
Zivo, Lord of Life, and the First Vine 1 J These kabalistic metaphora
are thus naturally repeated in the Gospel according to John (xv. i) : "I
am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman." In Genesis (xlix.),
the dying Jacob is made to say, " The sceptre shall not depart from
Judah (the lion's whelp), nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh
(Siloh) comes. . . . Binding his colt unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto
the choice vine, he washed his garments iii wine, and his clothes in the
blood of grapes." Shiloh is "King Messiah," as well as the Shiloh in
Ephraim, which was to be made the capital and the place of the sanc-
tuary. In The Targum of Onkelos, the Babylonian, the words of Jacob
read : "Until the King Messiah shall come." The prophecy has failed
in the Christian as well as in the kabalistico-Jewish sense. The sceptre
has departed from Judah, whether the Messiah has already or will come,
unless we believe, with the kabalists, that Moses was the first Messiah,
who transferred his soul to Joshua — Jesus. §
Says Hermas : " And, in the middle of the plain, he showed me .i
great white rock, which had risen out of the plain, and the rock was
* " Sohar," xl., p. lo. f "Codex Nazaraeus," vol. iii., pp. 6o,6i.
X Ibid., vol. ii. , p. 281 ; vol. iii., p. 59.
§ We must remind the reader, in this connection, that Joshua and Jesus are one and
the same name. In the Slavonian Bibles Joshua rta.d.%— lessus (or Jesus), Navin.
THE COMING OF KING MESSIAH. 245
higher than the mountains, rectangular, so as to be able to hold the whole
world ; but that rock was old, having a gate hewn out of it, and the hew-
ing out of the gate seemed to me to be recent." In the Sohar, we
find : " To 40,000 superior worlds the white of the skull of His Head
(of the. most Sacred Ancient in absconditus) is extended. * . . . When
Seir (the first reflection and image of his Father, the Ancient of the An-
cient) will, through the mystery of the seventy names of Metatron, de-
scend into lezirah (the third world), he will open a new gate. . . . The
Spiritus Decisorius will cut and divide the garment (Shekinah) into two
parts, f ... At the coming of King Messiah, from the sacred cubical
stone of the Temple a white light will be arising during forty days. This
will expand, until // encloses the whole world. ... At that time King
Messiah will allow himself to be revealed, and will be seen coming out
of the gate of the garden of Odan (Eden). ' He will be revealed in the
land Galil.'J; . . . When 'he has made satisfaction for the sins of
Israel, he will lead them on through a new gate to the seat of judg-
ment.' § At the Gate of the House of Life, the throne is prepared for
the Lord of Splendor." ||
Further on, the conunentator introduces the following quotation :
" This rock and this gate are the Son of God. ' How, Lord,' I said, ' is
the rock old and the gate new ? ' ' Listen,' He said, ' and understand,
thou ignorant man. The Soji of God is older than all of his creation, so
that he was a Councillor with the Father in His works of creation ; and
for this is he old.' " T
Now, these two assertions are not only purely kabalistic, without
even so much as a change of expression, but Brahmanical and Pagan
likewise. " Vidi virum excellentem cxli terrceque conditore natu majorem.
... I have seen the most excellent (superior) man, who is older by birth
than the maker of heaven and earth," says the kabalistic Codex. ** The
Eleusinian Dionysus, whose particular name was lacchos (laccho, lahoh) \\
— the God from whom the liberation of souls was expected — was con-
sidered older than the Demiurge. At the mysteries of the Anthesteria at
the lakes (the Liranae), after the usual baptism by purification of water,
the Mystce. were made to pass through to another door (gate), and one
* " Idra Rabba," vol. iii., § 41 ; the "Sohar."
\ " Kabbala Denudata," vol. ii., p. 230 ; the "Book of the Babylonian Compan-
ions," p. 35.
X " Sohar Ex.," p. II.
g " Midrash Hashirim ; " " Rabbi Akaba ; " " Midrash Koheleth," vol. ii., p. 45.
I "Codex Nazarseus," vol. iii., p. 60. T[ " On the Canon," p. 178 ff.
** Vol. ii. , p. 57 ; Norberg's "Onomasticon ; " " Sod, the Son of the Man," p. 103.
tf " Preller,'' vol. i., p. 4S4 ; K. O. Muller : " History of Greek Literature," p.
238; "Movers," p. 553.
246 ISIS UNVEILED.
particularly for that purpose, which was called " the gate of Dionysus,"
and that of " ths purified."
In the Sohar, the kabalists are told that the work-master, the Demi-
urge, said to the Lord : " Let us make man after our image." * In the
original texts of the first chapter of Genesis, it stands : " And the Elohim
(translated as the Supreme God), who are the highest gods or powers,
said : Let us make man in our (?) image, after our likeness." In the
Vedas, Brahma holds counsel with Parabrahma, as to the best mode to
proceed to create the world.
Canon Westcott, quoting Hernias, shows him asking: '-And why is
the gate new, Lord ? I said. ' Because,' he replied, ' he was manifested
at the last of the days of the dispensation ; for this cause the gate was
made new, in order that they who shall be saved might enter by it into
the Kingdom of God.' " f There are two peculiarities worthy of note
in this passage. To begin with, it attributes to " the Lord" a false state-
ment of the same character as that so emphasized by the Apostle John ,
and which brought, at a later period, the whole of the orthodox Chris-
tians, who accepted the apostolic allegories as literal, to such inconve-
nient straits. Jesus, as Messiah, was not manifested at the last of the
days ; for the latter are yet to come, notwithstanding a number of divinelj-
inspired prophecies, followed by disappointed hopes, as a result, to tes-
tify to his immediate coming. The belief that the " last times " had come,
was natural, when once the coming of King Messiah had been acknowl-
edged. The second peculiarity is found in the fact that the prophecy could
have been accepted at all, when even its approximate determination
is a direct contradiction of Mark, who makes Jesus distinctly state
that neither the angels, nor the Son himself, know of that day or that
hour. J We might add that, as the belief undeniably originated with the
Apocalypse, it ought to be a self-evident proof that it belonged to the
calculations peculiar to the kabalists and the Pagan sanctuaries. It was
the secret computation of a cycle, which, according to their reckoning,
was ending toward the latter part of the first century. It may also be
held as a corroborative proof, that the Gospel according to Mark, as well
as that ascribed to John, and the Apocalypse, were written by men,
of whom neither was sufficiently acquainted with the other. The Logos
was first definitely called petra (rock) by Philo ; the word, moreover, as
we have shown elsewhere, means, in Chaldaic and Phcenician, " inter-
preter." Justin Martyr calls him, throughout his works, " angel," and
makes a clear distinction between the Logos and God the Creator.
* "Sohar," vol. i., fol. 25.
\ " Sirail.," vol. ix., p. 12 ; " Supernatural Religion," vol. i. , p. 257.
\ Mark xiii. 32.
WHO WAS GABRIEL LEGATUS. 247
"The Word of God is His Son . . . and he is also called Angel and
Apostle, for he declares whatever we ought to know (interprets), and is
sent to declare whatever is disclosed." *
" Adan Inferior is distributed into its own paths, into thirty-two sides
of paths, yet it is not known to any one but Seir. But no one knows
the Superior Adan nor His paths, except that Long Face " — the
Supreme God. f Seir is the Nazarene " genius," who is called ^bel
Zivo ; and Gabriel Legatus — also "Apostle Gabriel." X The Nazarenes
held with the kabalists that even the Messiah who was to come did not
know the " Superior Adan," the concealed Deity ; no one except the
Supreme God ; thus showing that above the Supreme Intelligible Deity,
there is one still more secret and unrevealed. Seir-Anpin is the third
God, while " Logos," according to Philo Judeeus, is the second one. §
This is distinctly shown in the Codex. "The false Messiah shall say:
" I am Deus, son of Deus ; my Father sent me here. ... I am the first
Legate, I am /Ebel Zivo, I am come from on liigh ! But distrust him ;
for he will not be ^bel Zivo. JEhsl Zivo will not permit himself to be
seen in this age." || Hence the belief of some Gnostics that it was not
^bel Zivo (Archangel Gabriel) who " overshadowed " Mary, but Ilda-
Baoth, who formed the material body of Jesus ; Christos uniting himself
with him only at the moment of baptism in the Jordan.
Can we doubt Nork's assertion that " the Bereshith Rabba, the oldest
part of the Midrash Rabboth, was known to the Church Fathers in a
Greek translation ? " ^
But if, on the one hand, they were sufficiently acquainted with the
different religious systems of their neighbors to have enabled them to
build a new religion alleged to be distinct from all others, their ignor-
ance of the Old Testament itself, let alone the more complicated ques-
tions of Grecian metaphysics, is now found to have been deplorable.
" So , for instance, in Matthew xxvii. 9 f , the passage from Zcchariah
xi. 12, 13, is attributed to Jeremiah," says the author of Supernatu-
ral Heligion. "In Mark i. 2, a quotation from Malachi iii. i, is as-
* " Apolog.," vol. i., p. 63. f " Idra Rabba," x., p. 177.
% "Codex Nazar^us," vol. i., p. 23.
§ PMlo says that the Logos is the ivterpreier of the highest God, and argues,
"that he must be the God of us imperfect beings " (" Leg. Alleg.," iii., t^ 73). Accord-
ing to his opinion man was not made in the likeness of the most High God, the Father
of all, but in that of the second God who is his word — Logos " (Pliilo : " Fragments,"
I ; ex. Euseb. "Praepar. Evang.," vii., 13).
I " Codex Nazarseus," p. 57 ; " Sod, the Son of the Man," p. 59.
•^ ■' Hundert und ein Frage," p. xvii. ; Dunlap : "Sod, the Son of the Man," p. 87 ;
the author, who quotes Nork, says that parts of the " Midrashim " and the " Tar-
gTim" of Onkelos, antedate the "New Testament."
248 ISIS UNVEILED.
cribed to Isaiah. In i Corinthians, ii. 9, a passage is quoted as Holy
Scripture, which is not found in the Old Testament at all, but which is
taken, as Origen and Jerome state, from an apocryphal work, The Rev-
elation of Elias (Origen : Tract, xxxv.), and the passage is similarly
quoted by the so-called Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (xxxiv.).
How reliable are the pious Fathers in their explanations of divers here-
sies may be illustrated in the case of Epiphanius, who mistook the
Pythagorean sacred Tetrad, called in the Valentinian Gnosis, Kol-Arbas,
for a heretic leader. * What with the involuntary blunders, and deliber-
ate falsifications of the teachings of those who differed in views with
them ; the canonization of the mythological Aura Placida (gentle
breeze), into a pair of Christian martyrs — St. Aura and St. Placida ; f
the deification of a spear and a cloak, under the names of SS. Longimus
and Amphibolus ; \ and the Patristic quotations from prophets, of what
was never in those prophets at all; one may well ask in blank amaze-
ment whether the so-called religion of Christ has ever been other than
an incoherent dream, since the death of the Great Master.
So malicious do we find the holy Fathers in their unrelenting perse-
cution of pretended " haresies,' ' § that we see them telling, without hesi-
tation the most preposterous untruths, and inventing entire narratives,
the better to impress their own otherwise unsupported arguments upon
ignorance. If the mistake in relation to the tetrad had at first origin-
ated as a simple consequence of an unpremeditated blunder of Hippo-
lytus, the explanations of Epiphanius and others who fell into the same
absurd error || have a less innocent look. When Hippolytus gravely
denounces the great heresy of the Tetrad, Kol-Arbas, and states that
the imaginary Gnostic leader is, " Kalorbasus, who endeavors to explain
* Writing upon Ptolemseus and Heracleon, the author of" Supernatural Religion "
(vol. ii., p. 217) says that " the inaccuracy of the Fathers keeps pace with their want of
critical judgment," and then proceeds to illustrate this particularly ridiculous blunder
committed by Epiphanius, in common with Hippolytus, TertuUian, and Philostrius.
"Mistaking a passage of Irenoeus, 'Adv. Haer.,' i., p. 14, regarding the Sacred
Tetrad (Kol-Arbas), Hippolytus supposes Irenseus to refer to another heretic leader."
He at once treats the Tetrad as such a leader named " Colarbasus," and after deahng
(vi., 4) with the doctrines of Secundus, and Ptolemasus, and Heracleon, he proposes,
^ 5, to show, "what are the opinions held by Marcus and Colarbasus^'' these
two being, according to him, the successors of the school of Valentinus (cf. Bunsen :
"Hippolytus, U. S. Zeit.," p. 54 f ; " Ref. Omn. Ha:r.," iv., § 13).
f See Godf. Higgins : " Anacalypsis."
\ Inman : " Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism," p. 84.
^ Meaning — holding up of different views.
I " This absurd mistake," remarks the author of " Supernatural Religion," vol. ii.,
p. 218, "shows how little these writers knew of the Gnostics of whom they wrote,
and how the one ignorantly follows the other."
SELF-CONFESSED INFAMY OF EPIPHANIUS. 249
religion by measures and numbers," * we may simply smile. But when
Epiphanius, with abundant indignation, elaborates upon the theme,
" which is Heresy XV.," and pretending to be thoroughly acquainted with
the subject, adds: "A certain Heracleon follows after Colorbasus,
which is Heresy XVI.," | then he lays himself open to the charge of
deliberate falsification.
If this zealous Christian can boast so unblushingly of having caused
" by his information seventy women, even of rank, to be sent into exile,
through the seductions of some in whose number he had himself been
drawn into joining their sect," he has left us a fair standard by which to
judge him. C. W. King remarks, very aptly, on this point, that "it may
reasonably be suspected that this worthy renegade had in this case saved
himself from the fate of his fellow-religionists by turning evidence against
them, on the opening of the persecution." \
And thus, one by one, perished the Gnostics, the only heirs to whose
share had fallen a few stray crumbs of the unadulterated truth of primitive
Christianity. All was confusion and turmoil during these first centuries,
till the moment when all these contradictory dogmas were finally forced
upon the Christian world, and examination was forbidden. For long ages
it was made a sacrilege, punishable with severe penalties, often death, to
seek to comprehend that which the Church had so conveniently elevated
to the rank of divine mystery. But since biblical critics have taken upon
themselves to " set the house in order," the cases have become reversed.
Pagan creditors now come from every part of the globe to claim their
own, and Christian theology begins to be suspected of complete bank-
ruptcy. Such is the sad result of the fanaticism of the "orthodox" sects,
who, to borrow an expression of the author of " The Decline and Fallot
the Roman Empire," never were, like the Gnostics, " the most polite, the
most learned, and most wealthy of the Christian name." And, if not all
of them " smelt garlic," as Renan will have it, on the other hand, none
of these Christian saints have ever shrunk from spilling their neighbor's
blood, if the views of the latter did not agree with their own.
And so all our philosophers were swept away by the ignorant and
superstitious masses. The Philaletheians, the lovers of truth, and their
eclectic school, perished ; and there, where the young Hypatia had taught
the highest philosophical doctrines ; and where Ammonius Saccas had
explained that " the whole which Christ had in view was to reinstate and
restore to its primitive integrity the wisdom of the ancients— to reduce
* " Ref. Omn. Haer.," iv., g 13.
\ Epiph. : " Hser.," xxxvi. , § i. p. 262 (quoted in " Supernatural Religion "). See
Volkmar's "Die Colorabasus-gnosis " in Niedner's " Zeitschr. Hist. Theol."
X " Gnostics and their Remains," p. 1S2 f., note 3.
250 ISIS UNVEILED.
within bounds the universally prevailing dominion of superstition . . .
and to exterminate the various errors that had found their way into the
different popular religions " * — there, we say, freely raved the oi ttoWol of
Christianity. No more precepts from the mouth of the " God-taught
philosopher," but others expounded by the incarnation of a most cruel,
fiendish superstition.
" If thy father," wrote St. Jerome, " lies down across thy threshold, if
thy mother uncovers to thine eyes the bosom which suckled thee, trample
on thy father's lifeless body, trample on thy mother's bosom, and, with
eyes unmoistened and dry, fly to the Lord who calleth thee ! ! "
This sentence is equalled, if not outrivalled, by this other, pronounced
in a like spirit. It emanates from another father of the early Church, the
eloquent Tertullian, who hopes to see all the " philosophers " in the
gehenna fire of Hell. "What shall be the magnitude of that scene ! . . .
How shall I laugh ! How shall I rejoice ! How shall I triumph when I
see so many illustrious kings who were said to have mounted into heaven,
groaning with Jupiter, their god, in the lowest darkness of hell ! Then
shall the soldiers who have persecuted the name of Christ burn in more
cruel fire than any they had kindled for the saints ! " f
These murderous expressions illustrate the spirit of Christianity till
this day. But do they illustrate the teachings of Christ ? By no means.
As Eliphas Levi says, " The God in the name of whom we would trample
on our mothei^'s bosom we must see in the hereafter, a hell gaping widely
at his feet, and an exterminating sword in his hand. . . . Moloch burned
children but a few seconds ; it was reserved to the disciples of a god who
is alleged to have died to redeem humanity on the cross, to create a new
Moloch whose burning stake is eternal ! " J
That this spirit of true Christian love has safely crossed nineteen cen-
turies and rages now in America, is fully instanced in the case of the rabid
Moody, the revivalist, who exclaims : " I have a son, and no one but
God knows how I love him ; but I would see those beautiful eyes dug out
of his head to-night, rather than see him grow up to manhood and go
down to the grave without Christ and without hope ! ! "
To this an American paper, of Chicago, very justly responds : " This
is the spirit of the inquisition, which we are told is dead. If Moody in
his zeal would ' dig out ' the eyes of his darling son, to what lengths may
he not go with the sons of others, whom he may love less ? It is the
spirit of Loyola, gibbering in the nineteenth century, and prevented from
lighting the fagot flame and heating red-hot the instruments of torture
only by the arm of law."
* Mosheim. f Tertullian : " Despectse," ch. xxx.
j; Mosheim : " Eccles. Hist.," c. v., § 5.
CHAPTER VI.
"The curtains of Yesterday drop down, the curtains of To-morrow roll up ; but Yesterday and To-
morrow both areP — Sartor Resartus : Natural SupematuraHsm.
" May we not then be permitted to examine the authenticity of the Bible ? which since the second cen-
tury has been put forth as the criterion of scientific truth? To maintain itself in a position soexa]ted,it
must challenge human criticism." — Conflict between Religion atid Science.
"One kiss of Nara upon the lips of Nari and all Nature wakes." — Vina Snati (A Hindu Poet).
WE must not forget that the Christian Church owes its present canon-
ical Gospels, and hence its whole religious dogmatism, to the Sortes
Sanctorum. Unable to agree as to which were the most divinely-inspired
of the numerous gospels extant in its time, the mysterious Council of Nicea
concluded to leave the decision of the puzzling question to miraculous
-intervention. This Nicean Council may well be called mysterious.
There was a mystery, first, in the mystical number of its 318 bishops, on
which Barnabas (viii. 11, 12, [3) lays such a stress; added to this, there
is no agreement among ancient writers as to the time and place of its
assembly, nor even as to the bishop who presided. Notwithstanding
the grandiloquent eulogium of Constantine,* Sabinus, the Bishop of
Heraclea, affirms that "except Constantine, the emperor, and Eusebius
Pamphilus, these bishops were a set of illiterate, simple creatures, that
understood nothing ; " which is equivalent to saying that they were a set
of fools. Such was apparently the opinion entertained of them by Pap-
pus, who tells us of the bit of magic resorted to to decide which were the
true gospels. In his Synodicon to that Council Pappus says, having
" promiscuously put all the books that were referred to the Council for
determination under a communion-table in a church, they (the bishops)
besought the Lord that the inspired writings might get upon the table,
while the spurious ones remained underneath, and it happened accord-
ingly." But we are not told who kept the keys of the council chamber
over night !
On the authority of ecclesiastical eye-witnesses, therefore, we are at
liberty to say that the Christian world owes its " Word of God " to a
* Socrates ; " Scol. Eccl. Hist.," b. I., c. ix.
252 ISIS UNVEILED.
method of divination, for resorting to which the Church subsequently
condemned unfortunate victims as conjurers, enchanters, magicians,
witches, and vaticinators, and burnt them by thousands ! In treating of
this truly divine phenomenon of the self-sorting manuscripts, the Fathers of
the Church say that God himself presides over the Sortes. As we have
shown elsewhere, Augustine confesses that he himself used this sort of
divination. But opinions, like revealed religions, are liable to change.
That which for nearly fifteen hundred years was imposed on Christendom
as a book, of which every word was written under the direct supervision
of the Holy Ghost ; of which not a syllable, nor a comma could be
changed without sacrilege, is now being retranslated, revised, corrected,
and chpped of whole verses, in some cases of entire chapters. And
yet, as soon as the new edition is out, its doctors would have us accept
it as a new " Revelation " of the nineteenth century, with the alternative
of being held as an infidel. Thus, we see that, no more within than
without its precincts, is the infallible Church to be trusted more than
would be reasonably convenient. The forefathers of our modern divines
found authority for the Sortes in the verse where it is said : " The lot
is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord ; " *
and now, their direct heirs hold that " the whole disposing thereof is of
the Devil." Perhaps, they are unconsciously beginning to endorse the
doctrine of the Syrian Bardesanes, that the actions of God, as well as of
man, are subject to necessity ?
It was no doubt, also, according to strict "necessity" that the Neo-
platonists were so summarily dealt with by the Christian mob. In those
days, the doctrines of the Hindu naturalists and antediluvian Pyriho-
nists were forgotten, if they ever had been known at all, to any but a few
philosophers ; and Mr. Darwin, with his modern discoveries, had not even
been mentioned in the prophecies. In this case the law of the survival
of the fittest was reversed ; the Neo-platonists were doomed to destruc-
tion from the day when they openly sided with Aristotle.
At the beginning of the fourth century crowds began gatliering at the
door of the acadeni)' where the learned and unfortunate Hypatia expound-
ed the doctrines of the divine Plato and Plotinus, and thereby impeded
the progress of Christian proselytism. She too successfully dispelled the
mist hanging over the religious " mysteries " invented by the Fathers,
not to be considered dangerous. This alone would have been sufficient
to imperil both herself and her followers. It was precisely the teachings
' " Proverbs," chap, xvi., p. 33. In ancient Egypt and Greece, and among Israel-
ites, small sticks and balls called tlie " sacred divining lots " were used for this kmd of
or.icle in the temples. According to the figures which were formed by the accidental
juxtaposition of the latter, the priest interpreted the will of the gods.
WHY HYPATIA WAS MURDERED. 253
of this Pagan philosopher, which had been so freely borrowed b)' the Chris-
tians to give a finishing touch to their otherwise incomprehensible
scheme, that had seduced so many into joining the new religion ; and
now the Platonic light began shining so inconveniently bright upon
the pious patchwork, as to allow every one to see whence the
"revealed" doctrines were derived. But there was a still greater peril.
Hypatia had studied under Plutarch, the head of the Athenian school,
and had learned all the secrets of theurgy. While she lived to instruct
the multitude, no divine miracles could be produced before one who
could divulge the natural causes by which they took place. Her doom
was sealed by Cyril, whose eloquence she eclipsed, and whose authorit}',
built on degrading superstitions, had to yield before hers, which was
erected on the rock of immutable natural law. It is more than curious
that Cave, the author of the Lives of the Fathers, should find it incredi-
ble that Cyril sanctioned her murder on account of his "general charac-
ter." A saint who will sell the gold and silver vessels of his church, and
then, after spending the money, lie at his trial, as he did, may well be sus-
pected of anything. Besides, in this case, the Church had to fight for
her life, to say nothing of her future supremacy. Alone, the hated and
erudite Pagan scholars, and the no less learned Gnostics, held in their
doctrines the hitherto concealed wires of all these theological marion-
ettes. Once the curtain should be lifted, the connection between the
old Pagan and the new Christian religions would be exposed ; and then,
what would have become of the Mysteries into which it is sin and blas-
phemy to pry ? With such a coincidence of the astronomical allegories
of various Pagan myths with the dates adopted by Christianity for the
nativitv, crucifixion, and resurrection, and such an identityof rites and cere-
monies, what would have been the fate of the new religion, had not the
Church, under the pretext of serving Christ, got rid of the too-well-
informed philosophers ? To guess what, if the coup d'etat had then
failed, might have been the prevailing religion in our own century would
indeed, be a hard task. But, in all probability, the state of things
which made of the middle ages a period of intellectual darkness, which
degraded the nations of the Occident, and lowered the European of those
days almost to the level of a Papuan savage — could not have occurred.
The fears of the Christians were but too well founded, and their
pious zeal and prophetic insight was rewarded from the very first. In
the demolition of the Serapeum, after the bloody riot between the
Christian mob and the Pagan worshippers had ended with the interference
of the emperor, a Latin cross, of a perfect Christian shape, was discov-
ered hewn upon the granite slabs of the adytum. This was a lucky dis-
covery, indeed ; and the monks did not fail to claim that the cross had
254 ISIS UNVEILED.
been hallowed by the Pagans In a " spirit of prophecy." At least, Sozo-
men, with an air of triumph, records the fact.* But, archceology and
symbolism, those tireless and implacable enemies of clerical false pre-
tences, have found in the hieroglyphics of the legend running around the
design, at least a partial interpretation of its meaning.
According to King and other numismatists and archasologists, the
cross was placed there as the symbol of eternal life. Such a Tau, or
Egyptian cross, was used in the Bacchic and Eleusinian Mysteries. Sym-
bol of the dual generative power, it was laid upon the breast of the initiate,
after his "new birth" was accomplished, and the Mysts had returned
from their baptism in the sea. It was a mystic sign that his spiritual
birth had regenerated and united his astral soul with his divine spirit,
and that he was ready to ascend in spirit to the blessed abodes of light
and glory — the Eleusinia. The Tau was a magic talisman at the same
time as a religious emblem. It was adopted by the Christians through
the Gnostics and kabalists, wlio used it largely, as their numerous gems
testify, and who had the Tau (or handled cross) from the Egyptians, and
the Latin cross from the Buddhist missionaries, who brought it from India,
where it can be found until now, two or three centuries B.C. The
Assyrians, Egyptians, ancient Americans, Hindus, and Romans had it in
various, but very slight modifications of shape. Till very late in the
medifeval ages, it was considered a potent spell against epilepsy and
demoniacal possession ; and the " signet of the living God," brought down
in St. John's vision by the angel ascending from the east to " seal the
servants of our God in their foreheads," was but the same mystic Tau —
the Egyptian cross. In the painted glass of St. Dionysus (France), this
angel is represented as stamping this sign on the forehead of the elect ;
the legend reads, signvm TAY. In King's Gnostics, the author reminds
us that "this mark is commonly born by St. Anthony, an Egyptian
recluse." f What the real meaning of the Tau was, is explained to us by
the Christian St. John, the Egyptian Hermes, and the Hindu Brahmans.
It is but too evident that, with the apostle, at least, it meant the "Ineffa-
ble Name," as he calls this " signet of the living God," a few chapters
further on, J the " Father's name written in their foreheads!'
The Brahmdtma, the chief of the Hindu initiates, had on his head-gear
two keys, symbol of the revealed mystery of life and death, placed cross-
* Another untrustworthy, untruthful, and iterant writer, and ecclesiastical histo-
rian of the fifth century. His alleged history of the strife between the Pagans, Neo-
platonics, and the Christians of Alexandria and Constantinople, which extends from the
year 324 to 439, dedicated by him to Theodosius, the younger, is full of deliberate falsi-
fications. Edition of " Reading," Cantab, 1720, fol. Translated. Plon freres, Paris.
\ " Gems of the Orthodox Christians," vol. i., p. 135. | Revelation xiv. I.
LADY ELLENBOROUGH'S TALISMAN. 255
like ; and, in some Buddhist pagodas of Tartary and Mongolia, the
entrance of a chamber within the temple, generally containing the stair-
case which leads to the inner daghoba, * and the porticos ot some Pra-
chida f are ornamented with a cross formed of two fishes, and as found
on some of the zodiacs of the Buddhists. We should not wonder at all
at learning that the sacred device in the tombs in the Catacombs, at Rome,
the " Vesica piscis," was derived from the said Buddhist zodiacal sign.
How general must have been that geometrical figure in the world-sym-
bols, may be inferred from the fact that there is a Masonic tradition that
Solomon's temple was built on three foundations, forming the " triple
Tau," or three crosses.
In its mystical sense, the Egyptian cross owes its origin, as an em-
blem, to the reahzation by the earliest philosophy of an androgynous
dualism of every manifestation in nature, which proceeds from the abstract
ideal of a likewise androgynous deity, while the Christian emblem is
simply due to chance. Had the Mosaic law prevailed, Jesus should have
been lapidated. \ The crucifix was an instrument of torture, and utterly
common among Romans as it was unknown among Semitic nations.
It was called the " Tree of Infamy." It is but later that it was adopted
as a Christian symbol ; but, during the first two decades, the apostles
looked upon it with horror. § It is certainly not the Christian Cross that
John had in mind when speaking of the " signet of the living God," but
the mystic Tau — the Tetragrammaton, or mighty name, which, on the
most ancient kabalistic talismans, was represented by the four Hebrew
letters composing the Holj- Word.
The famous Lady EUenborough, known among the Arabs of Damas-
cus, and in the desert, after her last marriage, as Hanoum Medjouy'e, had
a talisman in her possession, presented to her by a Druze from Mount
Lebanon. It was recognized by a certain sign on its left corner, to be-
long to that class of gems which is known in Palestine as a '■'■Messianic"
amulet, of the second or third century, B.C. It is a green stone of a pen-
tagonal form ; at the bottom is engraved a fish ; higher, Solomon's seal ; ||
* Dagkoba is a small temple of globular form, in which are preserved the relics of
Gautama.
f Prachidas are buildings of all sizes and forms, like our mausoleums, and are
sacred to votive offerings to the dead.
I The Talmudistic records claim that, after having been hung, he was lapidated and
buried under the water at the junction of two streams. " Mishna Sanhedrin," voh vi.,
p. 4; " Talmud," of Babylon, same article, 43 a, 67 a.
§ " Coptic Legends of the Crucifixion," MSS. xi.
I The engraving represents the talisman as of twice the natural size. We are at a
loss to understand why King, m his " Gnostic Gems," represents Solomon's seal as
a five-pointed star, whereas it is six-pointed, and is the signet of Vishnu, in India.
2S6 ISIS UNVEILED.
and still higher, the four Chaldaic letters— Jod, He, Vau, He, lAHO, which
form the name of the Deity. These are arranged in quite an unusual
way, running from below upward, in reversed order, and forming the
Egyptian Tau. Around these there is a legend which, as the gem is
not our property, we are not at liberty to give. The Tau, in its mysti-
cal sense, as well as the crux atisata, is the Tree of Life.
It is well known, that the earliest (Jnrisdan emblems — before it was
ever attempted to represent the bodily appearance of Jesus — were the
Lamb, the Good Shepherd, and the Fish. The origin of the latter em-
blem, which has so puzzled the archteologists, thus becomes comprehen-
sible. The whole secret lies in the easily-
ascertained fact that, while in the Kabala,
the King A-Iessiah is called "Interpreter,"
or Revealer of the mystery, and shown
to be the fifth emanation, in the Talmud
— for reasons we will now explain — the
Messiah is very often designated as " Dag,"
or the Fish. This is an inheritance from
the Chaldees, and relates — as the very
name indicates — to the Babylonian Dag-
on, the man-fish, who was the instructor and
interpreter of the people, to whom he appeared. Abarbanel explains
the name, by stating that the sign of his (Messiah's) coming "is the con-
junction of Saturn and Jupiter in the sign Pisces." * Therefore, as the
Christians were intent upon identifying their Christos with the Messiah
of the Old Testament, they adopted it so readily as to forget that its true
origin might be traced still farther back than the Babylonian Dagon.
How eagerly and closely the ideal of Jesus was united, by the early
Christians, with every imaginable kabalistic and Pagan tenet, may be
inferred from the language of Clemens, of Alexandria, addressed to his
brother co-religionists.
When they were debating upon the choice of the most appropriate
symbol to remind them of Jesus, Clemens advised them in the following
words : " Let the engraving upon the gem of your ring be either a dove,
or a ship running before the wind (the Argha)j or a fish." Was the good
father, when writing this sentence, laboring under the recollection of
Joshua, son of Nun (called Jesus in the Greek and Slavonian versions) ;
or had he forgotten the real interpretation of these Pagan symbols ?
* King {" Gnostics") gives the figure of a Cliristian symbol, very common during
the middle ages, of three fishes interlaced into a triangle, and having the FIVE letters (a
most sacred Pythagorean number) I. X. 0T2 engi'aved on it. The number five relates to
the same kabalistic computation.
THE HINDU NOACHIAN LEGEND. 257
Joshua, son of Nun, or Nave {Navis), could have with perfect propriety
adopted the image of a ship, or even of a tish, for Joshua means Jesus, son
of tfie fish-god ; but it was really too hazardous to connect the emblems
of Venus, Astarte, and all the Hindu goddesses— the argka, dove, and
Jish — with the " immaculate " birth of their god ! This looks very much
as if in the early days of Christianity but little difference was made be-
tween Christ, Bacchus, Apollo, and the Hindu Christna, the incarnation
of Vishnu, with whose first avatar this symbol of the fish originated.
In the Hari-ptirana, in the Bagaved-giita, as well as in several other
books, the god Vishnu is shown as having assumed the form of a fish with
a human head, in order to reclaim the VedasXaiV during the deluge. Hav-
ing enabled Visvamitra to escape with all his tribe in the ark, Vishnu,
pitying weak and ignorant humanity, remained with them for some time.
It was this god who taught them to build houses, cultivate the land, and to
thank the unknown Deity whom he represented, by building temples and
instituting a regular worship ; and, as he remained half fish, half-man, all
the time, at every sunset he used to return to the ocean, wherein he passed
the night.
" It is he," says the sacred book, " who taught men, after the diluvium,
all that was necessary for their happiness.
" One day he plunged into the water and returned no more, for the
earth had covered itself again with vegetation, fruit, and cattle.
"But he had taught the Brahmas the secret of all things" {Hari-
purand).
So far, we see in this narrative the double of the story given by the
Babylonian Berosus about Cannes, the fish-man, who is no other than
Vishnu — unless, indeed, we have to believe that it was Chaldea which
civilized India !
We say again, we desire to give nothing on our sole authority. There-
fore we cite JacoUiot, who, however criticised and contradicted on other
points, and however loose he may be in the matter of chronology (though
even in this he is nearer right than those scientists who would have all
Hindu books written since the Council of Nicea), at least cannot be
denied the reputation of a good Sanscrit scholar. And he says, while
analyzing the word Oan, or Cannes, that O in Sanscrit is an interjection
expressing an invocation, as O, Swayambhuva ! O, God! etc; a.nd An
Is a radical, signifying in Sanscrit a spirit, a being ; and, we presume, what
the Greeks meant by the word Dcetnon, a semi-god.
" What an extraordinary antiquity," he remarks, " this fable of Vishnu,
disguised as a fish, gives to the sacred books of the Hindus ; especially
in presence of the fact that the Vedas and iManu reckon more than twenty-
five thousand years of existence, as proved by the most serious as the most
17
2S8 ISIS UNVEILED.
authentic documents. Few peoples, says the learned Halhed, have their
annals more authentic or serious than the Hindus." *
We may, perhaps, throw additional light upon the puzzling question of
the fish-symbol by reminding the reader that according to Genesis the first
created of living beings, the first type of animal life, was the fish. " And
the Elohira said : ' Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving
creature that hath life ' . . . and God created great whales . . . and the
morning and the evening were the _fi/ih dayP Jonah is swallowed by a -
big fish, and is cast out again three days later. This the Christians regard
as a premonition of the three days' sepulture of Jesus which preceded his
resurrection — though the statement of the three days is as fanciful as much
of the rest, and adopted to fit the well-known threat to destroy the temple
and rebuild it again in three days. Between his burial and alleged resur-
rection there intervened but one day — the Jewish Sabbath — as he was
buried on Friday evening and rose to life at dawn on Sunday. However,
whatever other circumstance may be regarded as a prophecy, the story of
Jonah cannot be made to answer the purpose.
" Big Fish " is Cetus, the latinized form of Keto-io;Ta) and keto is Dag-
on, Poseidon, the female gender of it being Keton Atar-gatis — the Syrian
goddess, and Venus, of Askalon. The figure or bust of Der-Keto or
Astarte was generally represented on the prow of the ships. Jonah (the
Greek lona, or dove sacred to Venus) fled to Jaffa, where the god Dagon,
the man-fish, was worshipped, and dared not go to Nineveh, where the
dove was revered. Hence, some commentators believe that when Jonah
was thrown overboard and was swallowed by a fish, we must understand
that he was picked up by one of these vessels, on the prow of which was
the figure of Keto. But the kabalists have another legend, to this effect :
They say that Jonah was a run-away priest from the temple of the goddess
where the dove was worshipped, and desired to abolish idolatry and insti-
tute monotheistic worship. That, caught near Jaffa, he was held pris-
oner by the devotees of Dagon in one of the prison-cells of the temple,
and that it is the strange form of the cell which gave rise to the allegory.
In the collection of Mose de Garcia, a Portuguese kabalist, there is a draw-
ing representing the interior of the temple of Dagon. In the middle
stands an immense idol, the upper portion of whose body is human, and
the lower fish-like. Between the belly and the tail is an aperture which
can be closed like the door of a closet. In it the transgressors against
the local deity were shut up until further disposal. The drawing m
question was made from an old tablet covered with curious drawings
and inscriptions in old Phoenician characters, describing this Venetian
* " La Gendse de rHumanit^," p. 9.
THE FISH-AVATAR OF VISHNU. 259
oubliette of biblical days. The tablet itself was found in an excavation a
few miles from Jaffa. Considering the extraordinary tendency of Orien-
tal nations for puns and allegories, is it not barely possible that the " big
fish" by which Jonah was swallowed was simply the cell within the belly
of Dagon ?
It is significant that this double appellation of " Messiah " and
•' Dag " (fish), of the Talmudists, should so well apply to the Hindu
Vishnu, the " Preserving " Spirit, and the second personage of the
Brahmanic trinity. This deity, having already manifested itself, is still
regarded as the future Saviour of humanity, and is the selected
Redeemer, who will appear at its tenth incarnation or avatar, like the
Messiah of the Jews, to lead the blessed onward, and restore to them the
primitive Vedas. At his first avatar, Vishnu is alleged to have appeared
to humanity, in form like a fish. In the temple of Rama, there is a
representation of this god which answers perfectly to that of Dagon, as
given by Berosus. He has the body of a man issuing from the mouth
of a fish, and holds in his hands the lost ViJa. Vishnu, moreover, is the
water-god, in one sense, the Logos of the Parabrahm, for as the three
persons of the manifested god-head constantly interchange their attri-
butes, we see him in the same temple represented as reclining on the
seven-headed serpent, Ananta (eternity), and moving, like the Spirit of
God, on the face of the primeval waters.
Vishnu is evidently the Adam Kadmon of the kabalists, for Adam is
the Logos or the first Anointed, as Adam Second is the King Messiah.
Lakmy, or Lakshmi, the passive or feminine counterpart of Vishnu,
the creator and the preserver, is also called Ada Maya. She is the
" Mother of the World," Damatri, the Venus Aphrodite of the Greeks ;
also Isis and Eve. While Venus is born from the sea- foam, Lakmy
springs out from the water at the churning of the sea ; when born, she is
so beautiful that all the gods fall in love with her. The Jews, borrowing
their types wherever they could get them, made their first woman after the
pattern of Lakmy. It is curious that Viracocha, the Supreme Being in
Peru, means, literally translated, " foam of the sea."
Eugene Burnouf, the great authority of the French school, announces
his opinion in the same spirit : " We must learn one day," he observes,
" that all ancient traditions disfigured by emigration and legend, belong
to the history of India." Such is the opinion of Colebrooke, Inman,
King, Jacolliot, and many other Orientalists.
We have said above, that, according to the secret computation pecu-
liar to the students of the hidden science, Messiah is the fifth emanation,
or potency. In the Jewish Kabala, where the ten Sephiroth emanate
firom Adam Kadmon (placed below the crown), he comes fifth. So in
26o ISIS UNVEILED.
the Gnostic system ; so in the Buddhistic, in which the fifth Buddha —
Maitree, will appear at his last advent to save mankind before the final
destruction of the world. If Vishnu is represented in his forthcoming
and last appearance as the tenth avatar or incarnation, it is only because
every unit held as an androgyne manifests itself doubly. The Buddhists
who reject this dual-sexed incarnation reckon but five. Thus, while
Vishnu is to make his last appearance in his tenth, Buddha is said to do
the same in his fifth incarnation. *
The better to illustrate the idea, and show how completely the real
meaning of the avatars, known only to the students of the secret
doctrine was misunderstood by the ignorant masses, we elsewhere give
the diagrams of the Hindu and Chaldeo-Kabalistic avatars and emana-
tions, f This basic and true fundamental stone of the secret cycles,
shows on its very face, that far from taking their revealed Vedas and
Bible literally, the Brahman-pundits, and the Tanaim — the scientists
and philosophers of the pre-Christian epochs — speculated on the crea-
tion and development of the world quite in a Darwinian way, both anti-
cipating him and his school in the natural selection of species, gradual
development, and transformation.
We advise every one tempted to entei an indignant protest against
this affirmation to read more carefully the books of Manu, even in the
incomplete translation of Sir William Jones, and the more or less care-
less one of JacoUiot. If we compare the Sanchoniathon Phoenician
Cosmogony, and the record of Berosus with the Bhagavatta and Manu,
we will find enunciated exactly the same principles as those now offered
as the latest developments of modern science. We have quoted from
the Chaldean and Phoenician records in our first volume ; we will now
glance at the Hindu books.
" When this world had issued out of darkness, the subtile elementary
principles produced the vegetal seed which animated first the plants ;
from the plants, life passed into fastastical bodies which were born w the
ilus of the 7vaters ; then, through a series of forms and various animals,
it reached man." \
" He (man, before becoming such) will pass successively through
plants, worms, insects, fish, serpents, tortoises, cattle, and wild animals ;
such is the inferior degree."
" Such, from Brahma down to the vegetables, are declared the trans-
migrations which take place in this world." §
* The kabalistic Sephiroth are also ten in number, or five pairs.
\ An avatar is a descent from on liigh upon earth of the Deity in some manifest
shape.
\ " Bliagavatta." § " Manu," boolis i. and xiL
DARWIN COMPARED WITH VYASA. 261
In the Sanchoniathonian Cosmogony, men are also evolved out of
the ilus of the chaos, * and the same evolution and transformation of
species are shown.
And now we will leave the rostrum to Mr. Darwin : " I believe that
animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors." f
Again : " I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic
beings which have ever lived on this earth, have descended from some
one primordial form. J ... I view all beings, not as special creations, but
as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the
first bed of the Silurian system was deposited." §
In short, they lived in the Sanchoniathonian chaos, and in the ilus
of Manu. Vyasa and Kapila go still farther than Darwin and Manu.
"They see in Brahma but the name of the universal germ ; they deny
the existence of a First Cause ; and pretend that everything in nature
found itself developed only in consequence of material and fatal
forces," says Jacolliot. ||
Correct as may be this latter quotation from Kapila, it demands a
few words of explanation. Jacolliot repeatedly compares Kapila and
Veda Vyasa with Pyrrho and Littre. We have nothing against such a
comparison with the Greek philosopher, but we must decidedly object to
any with the French Comtist ; we find it an unmerited fling at the mem-
ory of the great Aryan sage. Nowhere does this prolific writer state
the repudiation by either ancient or modern Brahmans of God — the
"unknown,''' universal Spirit ; nor does any other Orientalist accuse the
Hindus of the same, however perverted the general deductions of our
savants about Buddhistic atheism. On the contrary, Jacolliot states more
than once that the learned Pundits and educated Brahmans have never
shared the popular superstitions ; and affirms their unshaken belief in
the unity of God and the soul's immortality, although most assuredly
neither Kapila, nor the initiated Brahmans, nor the followers of the
Vedanta school would ever admit the existence of an anthropomorphic
creator, a " First Cause" in the Christian sense. Jacolliot, in his Indo-
European and African Traditions, is the first to make an onslaught on
Professor Miiller, for remarking that the Hindu gods were " masks
without actors . . . names without being, and not beings without
names." ^ Quoting, in support of his argument, numerous verses from
the sacred Hindu books, he adds : " Is it possible to refuse to the
author of these stanzas a definite and clear conception of the divine
* See Cory's "Ancient Fragments."
\ " Origin of Species," first edition, p. 484. % Ibid., p. 484,
§ Ibid., pp. 488, 489. B " La Genese de I'Humanite," p. 339.
% " T.aditions Indo-Europeennes et Africaiues," p. 291.
262 ISIS UNVEILED.
force, of the Unique Being, master and Sovereign of the Universe ? . . .
Were the altars then built to a metaphor ? " *
The latter argument is perfectly just, so far as Max Miiller's nega-
tion is concerned. But we doubt whether the French rationahst under-
stands Kapila's and Vyasa's philosophy better than the German philolo-
gist does the "theological twaddle," as the latter terms the Atharva-
Vcda. Professor MuUer and JacoUiot may have ever so great claims to
erudition, and be ever so familiar with Sanscrit and other ancient
Oriental languages, but both lack the key to the thousand and one mys-
teries of the old secret doctrine and its philosophy. Only, while the
German philologist does not even take the trouble to look into this magi-
cal and " theological twaddle," we find the French Indianist never losing
an opportunity to investigate. Moreover, he honestly admits his incom-
petency to ever fathom this ocean of mystical learning. In its existence
he not only firmly believes, but throughout his works he incessantly calls
the attention of science to its unmistakable traces at every step in
India. Still, though the learned Pundits and Brahmans — his "revered
masters " of the pagodas of Villenoor and Chulambruni in the Car-
natic, f as it seems, positively refused to reveal to him the mysteries of
the magical part of the Agrouchada-Parikshai, \ and of Brahmatma's
triangle, § he persists in the honest declaration that everything is possible
in Hindu metaphysics, even to the Kapila and Vyasa systems having
been hitherto misunderstood.
M. Jacolliot weakens his assertion immediately afterward with the fol-
lowing contradiction :
"We were one day inquiring of a Brahman of the pagoda of Ch^lam-
brum, who belonged to the skeptical school of the naturalists of lyasa,
whether he believed in the existence of God. He answered us, smiling:
' Ahatn eva param Brahina' — I am myself a god.
" ' What do you mean by that ? '
" ' I mean that every being on earth, however humble, is an immortal
portion of the immortal matter.' " ||
The answer is one which would suggest itself to every ancient phil-
osopher, Kabalist and Gnostic, of the early days. It contains the very
spirit of the delphic and kabalistic commandment, for esoteric philosophy
solved, ages ago, the problem of what man was, is, and will be. If persons
i
* "Traditions Indo-Europeennes et Africaines," pp. 294, 295.
f " Les Fils de Dieu," p. 32. % " Le Spiritisme dans le Monde," p. 78 and others.
§ " Les Fils de Dieu," p. 272. While not at all astonished that Brahmans should
have refused to satisfy M. Jacolliot's curiosity, we must add that the meaning of this
sign is known to the superiors of every Buddhist lamasery, not alone to the Brahmans.
II "La Geuese de I'Humanite,'' p. 339.
VEDIC VIEWS UPON SOUL. 263
believing the Bible verse which teaches that the " Lord God formed
man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life," reject at the same time the idea that every atom of this dust, as
ever}' particle of this " living soul," contains " God " within itself, then we
pity the logic of that Christian. He forgets the verses which precede the
one in question. God blesses equally every beast of the field and every
living creature, in the water as in the air, and He endows them all with
life, which is a breath of His own Spirit, and the soul of the animal.
Humanity is the Adam Kadmon of the " Unknown," His microcosm, and
His only representative on earth, and every man is a god on earth.
AVe would ask this French scholar, who seems so familiar with every
sloka of the books of Manu, and other Vedic writers, the meaning of this
sentence so well known to him :
" Plants and vegetation reveal a multitude of forms because of their
precedent actions ; they are surrounded by darkness, but are nevertheless
endowed with an interior soul, and feel equally pleasure and pain "
[Manu, book i.).
If the Hindu philosophy teach the presence of a degree of soul in
the lowest forms of vegetable life, and even in every atom in space, how
is it possible that it should deny the same immortal principle to man ?
And if it once admit the immortal spirit in man, how can it logically
deny the existence of the parent source — I will not say the first, but the
eternal Cause? Neither rationalists nor sensualists, who do not compre-
hend Indian metaphysics, should estimate the ignorance of Hindu meta-
physicians by their own.
The grand cycle, as we have heretofore remarked, includes the pro-
gress of mankind from its germ in the primordial man of spiritual form
to the deepest depth of degradation he can reach — each successive step
in the descent being accompanied by a greater strength and grossness of
the physical form than its precursor — and ends with the Flood. But
while the grand cycle, or age, is running its course, seven minor cj'cles are
passed, each marking the evolution of a new race out of the preceding one,
on a new world. And each of these races, or grand types of humanity,
breaks up into subdivisions of families, and they again into nations and
tribes, as we see the earth's inhabitants subdivided to-day into Mongols,
Caucasians, Indians, etc.
Before proceeding to show by diagrams the close resemblance between
the esoteric philosophies of all the ancient peoples, however geographic-
ally remote from each other, it will be useful to briefly explain the real
ideas which underlie all those symbols and allegorical representations and
have hitherto so puzzled the uninitiated commentators. Better than any-
thing, it may show that religion and science were closer knit than twins
264 ISIS UNVEILED.
in days of old ; that they were one in two and two in one from the very
moment of their conception. With mutually convertible attributes, science
was spiritual and religion was scientific. Like the androgyne man of the
first chapter of Genesis — ■" male and female," passive and active ; created
in the image of the Elohim. Omniscience developed omnipotency, the
latter called for the exercise of the former, and thus the giant had
dominion given him over all the four kingdoms of the world. But, like
the second Adam, these androgynes were doomed to "fall and lose their
powers" as soon as the two halves of the duality separated. The fruit of
the Tree of Knowledge gives death without the fruit of the Tree of Life.
Man must know /izOTJ'd?^ before he can hope to know the ultimate genesis
even of beings and powers less developed in their inner nature than him-
self. So with religion and science ; united two in one they were infallible,
for the spiritual intuition was there to supply the limitations of physical
senses. Separated, exact science rejects the help of the inner voice,
while religion becomes merely dogmatic theology — each is but a corpse
without a soul.
The esoteric doctrine, then, teaches, like Buddhism and Brahmanism,
and even the persecuted Kahala, that the one infinite and unknown Essence
exists from all eternity, and in regular and harmonious successions is
either passive or active. In the poetical phraseology of Mann these con-
ditions are called the " day " and the " night " of Brahma. The latter is
either "awake" or "asleep." The Svubhavikas, or philosophers of the
oldest school of Buddhism (which still exists in Nepaul), speculate but
upon the active condition of this "Essence," which they call Svabhavat,
and deem it foolish to theorize upon the abstract and "unknowable"
power in its passive condition. Hence they are called atheists by both
Christian theology and modern scientists ; for neither of the two are able
to understand the profound logic of their philosophy. The' former will
allow of no other God than the personified secondary powers which have
blindly worked out the visible universe, and which became with them the
anthropomorphic God of the Christians — the Jehovah, roaring amid
thunder and lightning. In its turn, rationalistic science greets the Bud-
dhists and the Sv&bhavikas as the " positivists " of the archaic ages. If
we take a one-sided view of the philosophy of the latter, our materialists
may be right in their own way. The Buddhists maintain that there is no
Creator but an infinitude of creative powers, which collectively form the
one eternal substance, the essence of which is inscrutable — hence not a
subject for speculation for any true philosopher. Socrates invariably
refused to argue upon the mystery of universal being, yet no one would
ever have thought of charging him with atheism, except those who were
bent upon his destruction. Upon inaugurating an active period, says the
OUR UNIVERSE ONE OF A SERIES. 265
Secret Doctrine, an expansion of this Divine essence, from within out-
wardly, occurs in obedience to eternal and immutable law, and the phe-
nomenal or visible universe is the ultimate result of the long chain of
cosmical forces thus progressively set in motion. In like manner, when
the passive condition is resumed, a contraction of the Divine essence
takes place, and the previous work of creation is gradually and progres-
sively undone. The visible universe becomes disintegrated, its material
dispersed ; and " darkness," solitary and alone, broods once more over
the face of the " deep." To use a metaphor which will convey the idea
still more clearly, an outbreathing of the "unknown essence" produces
the world ; and an inhalation causes it to disappear. This process has
been going on from all eternity, and our present universe is but one of an
infinite series which had ?io beginning and will have no end.
Thus we are enabled to build our theories solely on the visible mani-
festations of the Deity, on its objective natural phenomena. To apply to
these creative principles the term God is puerile and absurd. One might
as well call by the name of Benvenuto Cellini the fire which fuses the
metal, or the air that cools it when it is run in the mould. If the inner
and ever-concealed spiritual, and to our minds abstract. Essence within
these forces can ever be connected with the creation of the physical uni-
verse, it is but in the sense given to it by Plato. It may be termed, at
best, the framer of the abstract universe which developed gradually in the
Divine Thought within which it had lain dormant.
In Chapter VIII. we will attempt to show the esoteric meaning of
Genesis, and its complete agreement with the ideas of other nations. The
six days of creation will be found to have a meaning little suspected by
the .multitude of commentators, who have exercised their abilities to the
full extent in attempting to reconcile them by turns with Christian theology
and un-Christian geology. Disfigured as the Old Testament is, yet in its
symbolism are preserved enough of the original in its principal features
to show the family likeness to the cosmogonies of older nations than
the Jews.
We here give the diagrams of the Hindu and the Chaldeo-Jewish cos-
mogonies. The antiquity of the diagram of the former may be inferred
from the fact that many of the Brahmanical [sagodas are designed and
built on this figure, called the " Sri-Iantara " * And yet we find the high-
est honors paid to it by the Jewish and mediaeval kabalists, who call it
"Solomon's seal." It will be quite an easy matter to trace it to its origin,
once we are reminded of the history of the king-kabalist and his trans-
actions with King Hiram and Ophir — the country of peacocks, gold, and
ivory — for which land we have to search in old India.
* See " Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society," vol. xlii., p. 79.
266
ISIS UNVEILED.
EXPLANATION OF THE TWO DIAGRAMS
REPRESENTING THE
CHAOTIC AND THE FORMATIVE PERIODS, BEFORE AND AFTER
OUR UNIVERSE BEGAN TO BE EVOLVED.
FROM THE ESOTERIC BRAHMANICAL, BUDDHISTIC, AND CHALDEAN
STANDPOINTS, WHICH AGREE IN EVERY RESPECT WITH THE EVO-
lutionary theory of modern science.
The Chaldean Doctrine.
The Upper Triangle
Contains the Ineffable Name. It is En-
Soph, the Boundless, the Infinite, whose
name is known to no one but the initiated,
and could not be pronounced aloud under
the penalty of death.
No more than Para-Brahma can En-
Soph create, for he is in the same condi-
tion of non-being as the former ; he is -.it^
non-existent so long as he lies in his latent
or passive state witliin Oulom (the bound-
less and termless time) ; as such he is not
the Creator of the visible universe, neither
is he the Aur (Light). He will become
the latter when the period of creation
shall have compelled him to expand the
Force within himself, according to the
Law of which he is the embodiment and
essence.
*' Whosoever acquaints himself with
T "n the Mercaba and the lahgash (secret
speech or incantation),* will learn the
secret of secrets."
* Lahgash is nearly identical in meanine with
V&ch^ the hidden power of the Mantras.
The Hindu Doctrine.
The Upper Triangle
Contains the Ineffable Name. It is the
AUM — to be pronounced only mentally,
under penalty of death. The Unrevealed
Para-Brahma, the Passive-Principle ; the
absolute and unconditioned " mukta,"
which cannot enter into the condition of a
Creator, as the latter, in order to think,
will^ and plan, must be bound and condi-
tioned (baddha) ; hence, in one sense, be a
finite being. "This (Para-Brahma) was
absorbed in the non-being, imperceptible,
without any distinct attribute, non-exist-
ent for. our senses. He was absorbed in
liis (to us) eternal (to himself) periodi-
cal, sleep," for it was one of the *' Nights
of Brahma." Therefore he is not the First
but the Eternal Cause. He is the Soul
of Souls, whom no being can comprehend
in this state. But *' he who studies the
secret Mantras and comprehends the
VdiV^ (the Spirit or hidden voice of the
Mantras, the active manifestation of the
latent Force) will learn to understand him
in his " revealed " aspect.
Both " This " and En-Soph, in their first manifestation of Eight, emerg-
ing from within Darkness, may be summarized in the Svabhavdt, the Eter-
nal and the uncreated Self-existing Substance which produces all ; while
everything which is of its essence produces itself out of its own nature.
The Space Around the Upper Triangle.
When the "Night of Brahma" was
ended, and the time came for the Self-
Existent to manifest Itself by revelation,
it made its glory visible by sending forth
from its Essence an active Power, which,
female at first, subsequently becomes
The Space Around the Upper Triangle.
When the active period had arrived,
En-Soph sent forth from within his own
eternal essence, Sephira, the active
Power, called the Primordial Point, and
tlie Crown, Kcter. It is only through her
that the " Un-bounded Wisdom" could
DIAGRAMS OF HINDU AND CHALDEAN SYSTEMS.
267
androgyne. It is Aditi, the " Infinite," *
the Boundless, or rather tlie " Un-
bounded." Aditi is the "mother" of all
the gods, and Aditi is the Father and the
Son.f " Who will give us back to the great
Aditi, that I may see father and mother ? " :j:
It is in conjunction with the latter female.
Force, that the Divine but latent Thought
produces the gi"eat "Deep" — water.
'■ Water is born from a transformation of
light , . . and from a Tnodlfication of the
water is born the earth," says Mann (book
i.).
'' Ve are born of Aditi from the water,
you who are born of the earth, hear ye all
my call." §
In this water (or primeval chaos) the
** Infinite " androgyne, which, with the
Eternal Cause, forms the first abstract
Triad, rendered by Aum, deposited the
germ of universal life. It is the Mundane
Egg, in which took place the gestation of
Purusha, or the manifested Brahma. The
germ which fecundated the Mother Princi-
ple (the water) is called Nara, the Divine
Spirit or Holy Ghost, | and the waters
themselves, are an emanation of the former,
Nari, while the Spirit which brooded over
it is called Narayana.*!"
" In that egg, the great Power sat inac-
tive a whole year of the Creator^ at the
close of which, by his thought alone, he
caused the egg to divide itself." ** The
upper half became heaven, the lower, the
* In "Rig-Veda Sanhita" the meaning is given
by Max Miiller as the Absolute, "for it is derived
from '' diti^ bond, and the negative particle ^."
t " Hymns to the Maruts" L, 89, 10.
t Ibid., I., 24, I.
§ Ibid., X., 63, 2.
B Thus is it that we find in all the philosophical
theogonies, the Holy Ghost female. The numerous
sects of the Gnostics had Sophia ; the Jewish kaba-
lists and Talmudists, Shekinah (the garment of the
Highest), which descended betv/een the two cheru-
bim upon the Mercy Seat ; and we find even
Jesus made to say. in an old text, '■'■Tsly Mother,
the Holy Ghost, took me."
"The waters are called nara, because they
were the production of Nara, the Spirit of God "
("Institutes of Manu," i. 10).
T Narayana, or that which moves on the
waters.
** "Manu," sloka 12.
give a concrete form to his abstract
Thought. Two sides of the upper trian-
gle, the right side and the base, are com-
posed of unbroken lines ; the third, the
left side, is dotted. It is through the lat-
ter that emerges Sephira. Spreading in
every direction, she finally encompasses the
whole triangle. In this emanation of the
female active principle from the left side
of the mystic triangle, is foreshadowed the
creation of Eve from Ailam's left rib.
Adam is the Microcosm of the Macrocosm,
and is created in the image of the Elohiin.
In the Tree of Life ^z'^-rm' tl^e triple
triad is disposed in such a manner that the
three male Sephiroth are on the right, the
three female on the left, and the four
uniting principles in the centre. From the
Invisible Dew falling from the Pligher
" Head " Sephira creates primeval water,
or chaos taking shape. It is the first step
toward the solidification of Spirit, which
through various modifications will produce
earth.* " It requires earth and water to
make a living sotii^^' says Moses.
When Sephira emerges like an active
power fiom within the latent Deity, she is
female ; when she assumes the office of a
creator, she becomes a male ; hence, she
is androgyne. She is the "Father and
Mother Aditi," of the Hindu Cosmogony.
* George Smith gives the first verses of tlie
Akkadian Genesis as found in the Cuneiform Texts
on the "Laleres Coctiles." There, also, we find
Attu, the passive deity or En-Soph, Bel, the Creator,
the Spirit of God (Sephira) moving on the face of
the waters, hence water itself, and Hea the Univer-
sal Soul or wisdom of the three combined.
The first eight verses read thus :
1. When above, were not raised the heavens ;
2. and below on the earth a plant had not grown
up.
3. The abyss had not broken Its boundaries.
4. I'he chaos (or water) Tiamat (the sea) was the
producing mother of the whole of them, (This is
the Cosmical Aditi and Sephira.)
5. Those waters at the beginning were ordained
but
6. a tree had not grown, a flower had not un-
folded.
7. When the gods had not sprung up, any one
of them ;
8. a plant had not grown, and order did not ex-
ist.
This was the chaotic or ante-genesis period.
268
ISIS UNVEILED.
earth Cboth yet in their ideal, not their
manifested form).
Thus, this second triad, only another
name for the first one (never pronounced
aloud), and which is the real pre-Vedic
' and primordial secret Trimurti, consisted
of
Nara, Father-Heaven,
Nari, Mother-Earth,
Viradj, the Son^r Universe.
The Trimurti, comprising Brahma, the
Creator, Vishnu, the Preserver, and Siva,
the Destroyer and Regenerator, belongs to
a later period. It is an anthropomorphic
afterthought, invented for the more popu-
lar comprehension of the uninitiated
masses. The Dikshita, tlie initiate, knew
better. Thus, also, the profound allegory
under the colors of a ridiculous fable, given
in the Aytareya Brahjnana, * which re-
sulted in the representations in some tem-
ples of Brahm-Nara, assuming the form
ofa bull, and his daughter, Aditi-Nari, that
of a heifer, contains the same metaphysical
idea as the " fall of man," or that of the
Spirit into generation — matter. The All-
pervading Divine Spirit embodied under
the symbols of Heaven, the Sun, and
Heat (fire) — the correlation of cosmic
forces — fecundates Matter or Nature, the
daughter of Spirit. And Para-Brahma
himself has to submit to and bear the
penance of the curses of the other gods
(Elohim) for such an incest. (See corre-
sponding column. ) According to the im-
mutable, and, therefore, fatal law, both
Nara and Nari are mutually Father and
Mother, as well as Father and Daughter, f
Matter, through infinite transformation, is
the gradual product of Spirit. The unifi-
cation of one Eternal Supreme Cause re-
quired such a correlation ; and if nature be
* See Hang's "Aytareya Brahmanam," of the
Rig-Veda.
t rhe same transformations are found in the
cosmogony of every important nation. Thus, we
see in the Eg^'ptian mythology, Isis and Osiris,
sister and brother, man and wife ; and Horus. the
Son of both, becoming the husband of his mother,
Isis, and producing a son, Malouli.
After brooding over the " Deep," the
" Spirit of God " produces its own image
in the water, the Universal Womb, sym-
bolized in Mann by the Golden Egg. In
the kabalistic Cosmogony, Heaven and
Earth are personified by Adam Kadmon
and the second Adam. The first Ineffable
Triad, contained in the abstract idea of the
" Three Heads," was a " mystery name."
It was composed of En-Soph, Sephira,
and Adam Kadmon, the Protogonos, the
latter being identical with the former,
when bisexual* In every triad there is
a male, a female, and an androgyne.
Adam-Sephira is the Crown (Keter). It
sets itself to the work of creation, by first
producing Chochmah, Male Wisdom, a
masculine active potency, represented by
,-;-, jah, or tlie Wheels of Creation, )3-;5!<,
from which proceeds Binah, Intelligence,
female and passive potency, which is Jeho-
vah^ -""", whom we find in the Bible fig-
uring as the Supreme. But this Jehovah
is not the kabalistic Jodcheva. The
binary is the fundamental corner-stone of
Gnosis. As the binary is the Unity mul-
tiplying itself and self-creating, the kaba-
lists show the "Unknown" passive En-
Soph, as emanating from himself, Sephira,
which, becoming visible light, is said to
produce Adam Kadmon. But, in the hid-
den sense. Sephira and Adam are one and
the same light, only latent and active, in-
visible and visible. The second Adam, as
the human tetragram, produces in his
turn Eve, out of his side. It is this second
triad, with which the kabalists have
hitherto dealt, hardly hinting at the Su-
preme and Ineffable One, and never com-
mitting anything to writing. All knowl-
edge concerning the latter was imparted
orally. It is the second Adam, then, who
is the unity represented by Jod, emblem
of the kabalistic male principle, and, at
the same time, he is Chochmah, Wisdom^
while Binah or Jehovah is Eve ; the first
* When a female power, she is Sephira : when
male, he is Adam Kadmon , for, as the former
contains in herself the other nine J^ephiroth, so, in
their totality, the latter, including Sephira, is cm-
bodied in the Archetypal Kadmon, the rptoToyows.
DIAGRAMS CONTINUED.
269
the product or effect of that Cause, in its
turn it has to be fecundated by the came
divine Ray which produced nature itself.
The most absurd cosmogonical allegories,
if analyzed without prejudice, will be found
built on strict and logical necessarianism.
** Being was born from not-being," says
a verse in the Rig- Veda.'* The first being
had to become androgyne and finite, by the
very fact of its creation as a being. And
thus even the sacred Trimurti, contain-
ing Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva will have an
end when the " night " of Para-Brahma
succeeds the present *' day," or period of
universal activity.
The second, or rather the first, triad —
as the highest one is a pure abstraction —
is the intellectual world. The Vach which
surrounds it is a more definite transforma-
tion of Aditi. Besides its occult signifi-
cance in the secret Mantram, Vach is
personified as the active power of Brahma
proceeding from him. In the Vedas she
is made to speak of herself as the supreme
and universal soul. ''I bore the Father
on the head of the universal mind, and my
origin is in the midst of the ocean ; and
therefore do I pervade all beings. . . .
Originating all beings, I pass like the breeze
(Holy Ghost), I am above this heaven,
beyond this earth ; and what is the Great
One that am /." f Literally, Vach is
speech, the power of awakening, through
the metrical arrangement contained in the
number and syllables of the Mantras, \ cor-
responding powers in the invisible world.
In the sacrificial Mysteries Vach stirs up
the Brahma {Brahma jinvati), or the
power lying latent at the bottom of every
magical operation. It existed from eter-
nity as the Yajna (its latent form), lying
dormant in Brahma from "no-beginning,"
and proceeded forth from him as Vach (the
active power). It is the key to the " Traiv-
♦ Mandala I., SuUta 166, Max Miiller.
t "Asiatic Researches," vol. viii., pp. 402, 403 ;
Colebrooke's translation.
X As in the Pythagorean numerical system every
number on earth, or the world of the effects, corre-
sponds to its invisible prototype in the world of
causes.
Chochmah issuing from Keter, or the an-
drogyne, Adam Kadmon, and the second,
Binah, from ChochmaH. If we combine
with Jod X.h& three letters which form the
name of Eve, we will have the divine
tetragram pronounced Ievo-hevah, Adam
and Eve, ,-nn"'j Jehovah, male and female,
or the idealization of humanity embodied
in the first man. Thus is it that we can
prove that, while the Jewish kabalists, in
common with their initiated masters, the
Chaldeans and the Hindus, adored the
Supreme and Unknown God, in the .sacred
silence of their sanctuaries, the ignorant
masses of every nation were left to adore
something which was certainly less than
the Eternal Substance of the Buddhists,
the so-called Atheists. As Brahma, the
deity manifested in the mythical JManu^ or
the first man (born of Swayanibhuva, or
the Self-existent), is finite, so Jehovah,
embodied in Adam and Eve, it. but a
human god. He is the symbol of human-
ity, a mixture of good with a portion of
unavoidable evil ; of spirit fallen into mat-
ter. In worshipping Jehovah, we simply
worship nature, as embodied in man, half-
spiritual and half-material, at best : we
are Pantheists, when not fetich wor-
shippers, like the idolatrous Jews, who
sacrificed on high places, in groves, to the
personified male and female principle,
ignorant of Iao, the Supreme '* Secret
Name " of the Mysteries.
Shekinah is the Hindu Vach, and praised
in the same terms as the latter. Though
shown in the kabalistic Tree of Life as pro-
ceeding from the ninth Sephiroth, yet
Shekinah is the "veil" of En-Soph, and
the "garment" of Jehovah. The "veil,"
for it succeeded for long ages in concealing
the real supreme God, the universal Spirit,
and masking Jehovah, the exoteric deity,
made the Christians accept him as the
"father" of the initiated Jesus. Yet the
kabalists, as well as the Hindu Dikshita^
know the power of the Shekinah or
Vach, and call it the "secret wisdom,"
The triangle played a prominent part in
270
ISIS UNVEILED.
idya," the thrice sacred science which
teaches the Yajus (the sacrificial Myste-
ries). *
Having done with the unrevealed triad,
and the first triad of the Sephiroth, called
the ** intellectual world," little remains to
be said. In the great geometrical figure
which has the double triangle in it, the
central circle represents the world within
the universe. The double triangle belongs
to one of the most important, if it is not
in itself the most important, of the mystic
figures'in India. It is the emblem of the
Trimurti three in one. The triangle with
its apex upward indicates the male princi-
ple, downward the female ; the two typify-
ing, at the same time, spirit and matter.
This world within the infinite universe is
the microcosm within the macrocosm, as
in the Jewish Kabala. It is the symbol of
the womb of the universe, the terrestrial
^%%i whose archetype is the golden mun-
dane egg. It is from within this spiritual
bosom of mother nature that proceed all
the great saviours of the universe — the
avatars of the invisible Deity.
** Of him who is and yet is not, from the
not-being, Eternal Cause, is born the being
Pouroucha," says Manu, the legislator.
Pouroucha is the *' divine male,'* the secotid
god, and the avatar, or the Logos of Para-
Brahma and his divine son, who in his
turn produced Viradj, the son, or the ideal
type of the universe. " Viradj begins the
work of creation by producing the ten
Pradjapati, ' the lords of all beings.' "
According to the doctrine of Manu, the
universe. is subjected to a periodical and
never-ending succession of creations and
dissolutions, which periods of creation are
named Manvantara.
'* It is the germ (which the Divine Spirit
produced from its own substance) which
never perishes in the being, for it be-
comes the soul of Being, and at the
period of pralaya (dissolution) it returns
to al^sorb itself again hito the Divine
Spirit, which itself rests from all eternity
* See initial chap., vol i., word Yajna,
the religious symbolism of every great
nation; for everywhere it represented the
thiee great principles— spirit, force, and
matter; or the active (male), passive (fe-
male), and the dual or correlative principle
which partakes of both and binds the two
together. It was the Arba or mystic
*'four," * the mystery-gods, the Kabeiri,
summarized in the unity of one supreme
Deity. It is found in the Egyptian pyra-
mids, whose equal sides tower up until
lost in one crowning point. In the kaba-
listic diagram the central circle of the
Brahmanical figure is replaced by the cross ;
the celestial perpendicular and the terres-
trial horizontal base line, \ But the idea
is the same : Adam Kadmon is the type
of humanity as a collective totality within
the unity of the creative God and the uni-
versal spirit.
*Eve is the trinity of nature, and Adam the unity
of spirit ; the former the created material 
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